Set in 1950, the novel tells the tale of two 'relics' of the old West: Susan Garth, a reclusive octogenarian photographer, and her friend Bark Blaylock, an equally reclusive 75-year-old writer of Western comic books. Their life stories tell the tale of the West, a place of 'silver, space, the epitome of liberty.' Susan and Bark cross paths with the characters of movies such as Wagonmaster, and . They had also been witness to the slaying of Billy the Kid, the cattle drive along the Chisholm Trail and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Combining history, fiction, and the fabricated realities of film, Thomson examines the mythic image of the West and its meaning for Americans.