Eight years ago, forty-year-old Caulfield Blake was run out of the West
Texas town of Simpson by a lynch mob. As sheriff, he'd been called on to
carry out justice. But the War was ending and upholding the law was a
tough kind of business. And when it meant hanging 'Colonel' Henry
Simpson's son for killing an unpopular federal judge, the
community-including Blake's own wife and children-wanted no part of him.
Now Colonel Simpson wants to expand his spread and force out his
neighbors, so he blocks up Carpenter Creek and dries up the already
barren soil. There's only one man who will stand up to the powerful
Colonel Simpson and he's been making a good living for himself rounding
up mustangs by the Brazos River. But when Caulfield Blake gets an urgent
letter from his remarried ex-wife, he listens to his heart, and not to
his sense, and heads back home.