This G R Howe novel is the story of the Stocktons, a southern Montana Territory ranching family with four boys born in the wilderness in the 1850s. By need they were savagely independent, entirely self-reliant. This is a tale of their unity, their profuse disagreements, their sense of justice. It takes place in the 1880s in a land where, historically, law enforcement was what the inhabitants needed it to be and the law was what they said it was. It is a portrait of conflict between the powerful and those who did not recognize that power, as well as one woman's stoic need to survive, her demand for revenge. The issue is whether the law really protects the innocent. Should that protection ever be left to a man with a gun? Is it possible without the benefit of a jury, without the support of elected law officials, and operating outside the law, to extract justice from an immoral judgment? Ultimately, does killing justify killing?