One of the cruelest jokes the world played on itself was turning a monster into a civilized man. That's how Ben Styke sees it, anyway. Fifteen years have passed since the Dynize War and people no longer remember Styke as a convict or a soldier or a killer. He's just another businessman. Hurting. Tired. Old. Playing a role that does not suit him.

Styke's world is upended on the day he refuses to sell horses to the wrong man. He is soon targeted by dangerous people with deep pockets, to whom one soft old rancher means nothing. But civilization can only impress itself on a man so much, and Ben Styke has some madness in him yet.