Mojave Crossing

Mojave Crossing is a western novel by Louis L'Amour, published in 1964 and one of his Sackett family stories. It follows William Tell Sackett on a passage from the Arizona goldfields to Los Angeles, a journey he would much rather have made on his own.

Sackett is carrying thirty pounds of gold in his saddlebags, which makes him watchful of anyone who takes an interest in him, and Dorinda Robiseau is exactly the kind of trouble he wants to avoid. When she begs him for safe passage to Los Angeles he agrees against his better judgement, and the two of them set out across the desert.

The crossing is made harder by the fact that Sackett does not trust his companion and by the word that a deadly gunman who also carries the Sackett name is waiting at the other end. The book keeps the family's name and its reputation in play on both sides of the confrontation, and the desert tests his judgement as much as his endurance. The gold in his saddlebags would buy a great deal in Los Angeles, if he arrives there with it.