Sam Decklan is a seasoned Texas Ranger soldiering in the later part of the ninetieth-century. Having an early career encounter with a Comanche raiding party and barely escaping their torturing imprisonment, he has now splintered off from a southern Ranger regiment and gained a reputation for working alone, freelancing in the New Mexico, Arizona Territories.
Known for taking few prisoners, he's commissioned by warrant to take down the killer of a prominent Texas Judge's granddaughter who is murdered in Arizona. Decklan is to follow the wealthy perpetrator into the new state of Colorado and 'render' him to justice.
While traveling north, he stumbles across a trio of bank robbers with relations to a prominent rancher in a southern Colorado town. Bringing them back in a manner of his usual practice, he sparks a feud with the owner.
Gaining further notoriety after surviving an assassination attempt by the rancher's gun hands, Decklan continues north to his final destination. There, he receives a lesson in big city politics and clever legal maneuverings by the suspect's manipulative lawyer.
In the process of finding his quarry, Decklan meets and falls for the murderer's favorite 'woman of leisure', an exquisite beauty with a secret of her own. Their liaison sparks jealousy and after unintended consequences, Decklan's simple assignment becomes all too personal.
At odds with the local law and dogged by the lingering rancher feud, Decklan is forced to swim the uncharted waters of a 'civilized' legal system to complete his task and bring new crimes to justice. In the process, he makes friends and enemies alike as he beats the big city legal game in unexpected ways.
But in the end, after innocent lives are lost, his commission evolves into a quest not only for due process, but for survival and revenge.
