After the Civil War, increasing numbers of white settlers struggled with the Indians for land on the plains - a situation tailor-made for Major Samuel Burkhalter's dreams of personal glory. But Lt. Martin Keefe saw the Major's ambition ruin his father's career, and now it is threatening his own. And Joe Moya's wife and children were killed in a massacre by the Major's troop. Hungry for revenge, Moya arranges an ambush at Rialto Creek.

"Life had been good to John Sessions in the three years since he had settled on this cattle ranch in Brush Creek, Kansas. Even now, as he returned from one of his infrequent trips to town, he thought warmly of his snug house in the valley and of his wife and their two sons. But his happiness was shattered into disbelief and horror when he reached home and found his wife scalped, his sons brutally murdered, and his house burned to the ground. It looked...