Longarm heads to a town called Hardwater to find out why the dying is easy…
When hard-livin’ bully Cracker Marner finally ran out of luck, dying came easy. A few shots to the chest by a smaller man with a bigger hat. That’s all anyone at the saloon remembers about the killer. Then in early spring, another stranger bellies up to the same bar and shoots the barkeep at point-blank range…just because he couldn’t “remember.”
 
Now the problem is federal—with Marshal Custis Long on the case. There are two places Longarm can look for answers: Cracker’s hot-tempered widow and his ma. But the hardest question still isn’t who could’ve wanted this unpopular man dead, it’s who could’ve wanted him alive…