"Ridge Parkman thinks he has it all sorted out. Hang up the Colt, turn in the badge, marry the woman, and move to Missouri to breed horses. Then an assignment comes along with his name all over it. Parkman nearly dies on the western slopes of the Rockies after a bloody shootout with a fellow marshal gone rogue. While recuperating in a remote mining town, a kind, rough-edged woman convinces him that he'd make a fine husband, and that it's time to give...

"The bloody Civil War has ended at last, and Marshal Ridge Parkman is looking forward to visiting his family at last in exhausted, war-torn western Missouri. But no sooner has he settled in to relax and catch up on things, than whimsical fate drops a mission in front of him that he can hardly ignore. The next thing he knows, he's on a steamboat heading down the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. His assignment is to track a father-son team who are fleeing...