Stories of the free and fertile lands in Oregon were drawing immigrants and settlers alike. The trail had been traveled by thousands before them and although there were troubles brewing with the Sioux it didn't deter the O'Brian family. An experienced wagon master and guide should have been able to get them through, but experience was not enough to save the Cumberland wagon train and most of the O'Brian family.
Ryan O'Brian was badly wounded but the help of a young Indian girl saved his life, and it became a life dedicated to her and their son, a life that became more important to him that anything that Oregon had to offer.
Travelling through the Sioux country was dangerous for any white man and for a man living under their noses it could be deadly...but it wasn't the Sioux that drove him out of the country he had come to love.
His return back to white society was tentative, he would have to answer a lot of questions he was not prepared to answer, but he found that most people were too polite to ask and he knew he would tell them in his own good time.
One woman wasn't too polite to ask questions...questions that at first were meant to get a rise out of him but soon turned into questions she had to know. He was not hiding anything but the story of his wife and son were private to him.
He took the job as 'wolfer' for the ranchers because it offered him an opportunity to make enough money for a place of his own, but a man named Blackie Williams took that dream away from him. The best way he could get Blackie was as sheriff so he took the job.
The sheriff of Robson Valley was standing in the middle of an all-out range war. A war between the ranchers, the settlers and the miners. He didn't know how serious it was until he pinned the badge and it led him to the shock of his life.