Jack Liege was acquitted of murder in the deaths of two sheepherders, but that hasn’t stopped the people of Douglas, Wyoming, from treating him as if he’s guilty. And so Jack hits the road, hungry for peace and a fresh start in the small town of Ellis Crossing. But a quiet life isn’t in the cards: shortly after his arrival, he breaks up a gunfight between sheepherder Andrew McGarwin and cattleman Tobe Kranston. In return for saving his life, Kranston offers Jack a job on his sprawling ranch…assuming he can stay alive long enough to claim it.

Because here in Ellis Crossing, a war is raging, a cutthroat battle for dominance in a rapidly changing world. And when McGarwin invites Jack to join him for a fateful poker game, the outsider finds himself trapped in a violent conflict that threatens the lives of everyone he has come to know—and the woman he’s grown to love.