John Henry Cole, working as a deputy US marshal out of Judge Isaac Parker's court in Fort Smith, Arkansas, was on assignment in the Indian Nations when he was shot and seriously injured. Now, fifteen years later, employed as a deputy for Judge Roy Bean in Texas, Cole receives a personal summons from Judge Parker to appear in his court within thirty days. Cole isn't inclined to go, but he knows whatever's on Judge Parker's mind is serious and decides...

The winter around Cheyenne, Wyoming, is devastating, killing both people and livestock. John Henry Cole lives three miles out of town on his small ranch, where he waits out the storm that is quickly killing his cattle and horses. Everything he owns is dying before his eyes, and there isn't anything he can do about it. His dreams of a settled life are as dead as everything else. He knows it's time to move on, and move on he does-but not in the direction...

"On a full moon July night in 1881 Sheriff Pat Garrett claimed to have killed the Kid in friend Pete Maxwell's house in Fort Sumner New Mexico. But did he? Many claimed to have seen the Kid far beyond that night. This is a novel about what really happened"--