The setting: Lincoln County, New Mexico in the 1875-1885 timeframe; the period of the Lincoln County War. The historical events of that period are accurately portrayed and the historical characters come alive in Marv Mercer's 61,000 word novel. Sam Houston Kincade, named by his father after the hero of Texas' war for independence. He was orphaned at the age of fifteen by Apache arrows and drifted from one ranch to another. He never thought of himself as a gunslinger but his all too readiness to go for his gun bothered him. However, when he signed on with John Chisum's cattle drive to Lincoln County, New Mexico and found himself in the midst of the Lincoln County war, his fast gun was put to good use. John Chisum and his faction are pitted against John Dolan and Larry Murphy's gang of hired guns. They were among the first to settle in Lincoln County, New Mexico. Besides their cattle ranch, they owned the only mercantile business and bank in Lincoln County. Consequently, they held an economic stranglehold on all the other ranches in the county; that is until the arrival of Alex McSween, a lawyer, and John Tunstall, an Englishman rancher, who in partnership opened their own store and bank. When Dolan and Murphy saw that their grip on the ranchers was slipping, they intimidated, harassed, and killed to rid the county of these two upstarts and regain the control that they were losing. While working the Chisum spread, Sam has a run in with two of Dolan and Murphy's hired guns, Jesse Evans and a skinny, snaggletoothed kid by the name of Billy Bonney alias Billy the kid. Things heat up in Lincoln: Tunstall is killed when the sheriff's posse tries to serve him a writ on a trumped-up charge; the sheriff is killed by Billy the Kid in revenge; McSween is killed outside of his home in Lincoln, the only weapon in his hand, a Bible. The slaughter of Alex McSween was too much for the powers in Washington to ignore. They replaced the Governor and his replacement grants amnesty to all involved in the Lincoln County War, except for Billy the Kid, and Sheriff, Pat Garrett is appointed to apprehend him. Sam accompanys Sheriff Garrett when he learns that Billy is staying at Pete Maxwell's home at Fort Sumner. The ending takes on a new twist when Sam confronts Billy at Pete Maxwell's home.