James Fremont, entrepreneur and founder of a town in central Texas named after himself, is murdered on a business trip to an army post. His partner, Ed Begley escapes the ambush and returns to Fremont and blames the Kiowa Indians. Deputy Sheriff J.C. Guy is sent to investigate the scene and secure the body. He finds Fremont stuck with arrows, but as J.C. looks around, the visible evidence doesn’t add up, and he comes away convinced that Jim Fremont was not murdered by Indians. Then who did it? Thus begins J.C. Guy’s tortuous and deadly search for the perpetrators, during the course of which, as he peels back layers of corruption and unholy alliances that have turned the city into a den of thieves, he is attacked from all sides, including attempts on his life. His reason tells him to let sleeping dogs lie, let the Indians take the blame and stick to his goal of saving enough to buy a small ranch, but his conscience, goaded by his friend and Presbyterian preacher Jeremiah Mackenzie, tells him dreams of peace and prosperity cannot coexist with injustice. He is hindered not only by competing desires but also by the lack of allies to back his play. Only three men are reliably on his side: Billy Dwyer, a fellow deputy sheriff and former Buffalo Soldier, the Reverend Mackenzie, and Will Taylor, black publisher of the Plains Dealer newspaper. Arrayed against them are political big-wigs, law enforcement officials, a corrupt judiciary, black market business interests, and the gang of outlaws who serve them. To complicate matters, J.C. and Lottie Yee, daughter of the Chinese laundry owner, have developed feelings for one another, and his fear for her safety as he gets closer to the truth causes such anguish that he wants to give up, but when the outlaws murder his friend, he cannot let it go, and he sets everything else aside to avenge him, come what may.