Novels by James Winterthorn 

A war-torn soldier. A deadly secret. A manhunt across the American frontier.
Mercer has one rule: never draw his weapon again. But when a cryptic package
in his possession threatens to expose a powerful man’s violent past, the quiet life
he’s tried to build shatters overnight.

Now he’s being hunted across the plains by a former Union enforcer with blood
on his hands and orders to kill. The truth Mercer carries could ignite another war,
or bring long-overdue justice to those left in the ashes.

With alliances bound by shared danger and ghosts on every trail, Mercer must
confront what he left behind... and decide how far a man should go to
keep a promise.

Cole Mercer is a former Confederate soldier who survived the destruction of his unit and the moral collapse that followed the war. Haunted by what he’s done and what he’s seen, he has sworn never to kill again, even as violence hunts him across the frontier. Known as “The Ghost,” he carries proof of a crime powerful men would rather erase than answer for.

Maria Alvarez is a sharp-eyed miner's daughter in northern Mexico who has learned to survive by revealing nothing she doesn’t intend to. Calm, confident, and quietly formidable, she understands violence well enough to avoid inviting it. When danger crosses her threshold, she does not flinch—but she never forgets.

John Triton is a former Union soldier and lawman who believes order must be imposed, not negotiated.

Calm, methodical, and unyielding, he hunts men the way others complete paperwork—without hatred and without mercy.

In a broken post-war world, Triton does not question authority; he becomes it.

Calm Watcher is an Apache whose authority comes not from force, but from patience and understanding.

Observant and deliberate, he listens more than he speaks, measuring men by their actions rather than their words.

In a world driven by violence, Calm Watcher represents endurance, memory, and restraint.

Silas Shaw is a wealthy industrialist and rising political figure who built his fortune on crimes he never committed with his own hands.

Articulate, and impeccably controlled, he understands that true power is exercised at a distance.

Where others spill blood, Shaw signs papers and lets the consequences fall elsewhere.

Fire Heart is a young Apache warrior marked by intensity, curiosity, and a restless desire to prove himself.

Fierce in spirit and quick to act, he is drawn to Mercer not out of trust, but fascination.

Where Calm Watcher embodies patience, Fire Heart represents momentum, testing the line between tradition and change.

Garrett is a wiry, mean-spirited mercenary who learned long ago that cruelty is efficient.

He carries violence casually, without ideology or remorse, and enjoys the imbalance it creates.

Where others justify their sins, Garrett simply indulges them.