Matt Stryker took it easy after taking lead from King Rennick, spending most of his time in a big chair leaned up against the wall of Charlie Clark's Kitchen. Then Deputy U.S. Marshal Ness Havelock rode in and asked Stryker to find Alfredo McLaws. Worth ten thousand dollars, Havelock said, alive.
McLaws, being half Yaqui, headed down the Outlaw Trail for Mexico, not knowing someone had framed him in a stage holdup. Important government papers were missing, and McClaws was said to have them.
Having nothing better to do, Stryker took the job. In riding for Mexico, he heard of a militia being put together in Nogales, Arizona. To protect the town, Jason Bills said, but the sign said the militia was getting set to invade Mexico.
Bills held that Arizona's southern border should be a straight line across the 19th parallel, and he was going to back his claim with a hundred men, new repeating rifles, and Gatling guns.
Suddenly Matt Stryker was in a race. He had to enlist the Rurales, the Yaquis, the Apaches, and the Pimas in an ambush to keep Bills's Nogales Guards out of Mexico and save Alfredo McLaws's neck.