"By the autumn of 1883, the wild country west of Holt County was getting organized. Brown County was carved out of Holt and Long Pine precinct early in the year, and the railroad reached Stuart and Bassett and rolled on to Valentine. Telegraph lines ran between the cities, and newspapers-Lord, the newspapers!-were everywhere with their blaring headlines. Progress, every place you looked. But when Augustus "Gus" John is caught between the vigilantes of the new Niobrara Protection Association led by Cap Burnham and old loyalties to his friend, Albert Wade, newly released from jail and hellbent on vengeance, where will his loyalties lie? With a fictionalized account of old Nebraska's vigilante days and Kid Wade's brief reign as captain of the horse thieves, Richard Prosch brings historic characters to life in a blood-churning adventure filled with passion and self-contemplation"--,Provided by publisher.