Red Denning had his back against a wall. That wall was solid granite, soaring two hundred feet above his head. Before him lay a steep, boulder strewn, talus slope. Arrayed against him more than a dozen men held him pinned down with a steady hail of gunfire. Newly returned from the Civil War, he found no welcome home. His nemesis had turned the country against him with false and ugly rumours. He had been neatly framed for a vicious crime and the woman who promised to wait for him was being pressured by her father to marry Red's worst enemy. As night settled in, his hope of seeing the sunrise rested entirely on the success of his last, desperate plan.