One of the best heroes of western fiction is once again engaged in a battle that he would prefer to avoid.

Buchanan is a peaceable man; however, the rest of the world is not. A man named Bradbury sent for him with the reasons being unknown.

There is no question that it was not to act as a hired gun, for Bradbury knew that Buchanan could not be hired to kill, even though he would not hesitate to do so if the cause was right.

The killers had taken over the town, lock, stock, and barrel - and they weren't going to leave until there was nothing left to loot..

They had the bank and the saloon and the sheriff's office and the poker game. And you had to like it or you ended up dead.

But Buchanan didn't like it...

When Buchanan grubstaked Mousetrap Mulligan he never thought he'd see his money again.

He never thought the old man would hit paydirt. But he did …and that was bad news for Buchanan.

Because a lonely old desert rat with a hidden cache of nuggets and a drunkard's bragging habits was likely to end up very dead … very suddenly.

"There's a little town thirty miles from here called Scottsville," Major Jones told him. "Your first job as a Texas Ranger will be to stop a war there."

Even before Major Jones finished giving him his orders, Buchanan knew he would find Scottsville to be hostile territory. Two cattle barons, who happened to be quick-drawing women, had torn the town apart in a duel that had already cost several lives.

Now Buchanan was expected to stop the war, and he knew that he couldn't do that without spilling more blood very possibly some of his own…