"He said his name was John Rutledge, and it had all started out as a simple favor - the return of a body to the ranch where the dead man had once been employed. But the circumstances of the killing - a cold-blooded gun-down - and the ominous parting words of the dead man's buddy made Rutledge wonder if there were going to be more serious consequences to his good deed than he had bargained for. By the time he got to the ranch and found Hetty Judson and her small daughter at the mercy of the gang that had killed the man tied across his saddle, he knew he was already into it up to his neck. The gang's boss, Cain Madison, had forced out every other small rancher in his little corner of Texas and now, after having killed Hetty's husband, was applying the same gruesome tactics to the Judson place. John Rutledge took a hard look at the odds and, despite the local sheriff's reluctance to lend a gun, as well as a past that seemed to be catching up with him, he knew he couldn't leave until things were settled - one bloody way or another"--