On the windswept cliffs of Nevada, Marshal Boone Crowe has come to bury his longtime friend, Seth Holland. But was his death an accident, or was it murder? Crowe soon finds out that he is the second target in a murderous plot, threading back to events the two witnessed more than twenty years before in the Civil War. As he sets out to return to Wyoming by stagecoach, with a one-armed preacher, a young newspaperman from Reno, and a silent, bitter Paiute Indian girl, Crowe and the others find themselves set afoot in the Nevada wastelands with a gang of hired killers dogging their every step. Add to that a band of rogue Utes bent on revenge, a revenge, a flashflood, and the unforgiving heat of the Nevada desert. But the big question remains-who is the mastermind who put Holland and Crowe on the death list? The marshal realizes he is battling enemies on all sides, and his only help is this small group of innocent misfits caught in the crossfire with him.