Los Alamos, 1945. Mort Whitman helps build "the gadget" that will end the war and immolate untold thousands of men— if it works. As the minds of men mushroom in a dark dream of war, he seeks solace in the white sands of the Jornada del Muerto. But what he discovers there teaches him how justice really works in the New Mexico badlands— as well as how one man can atone for a nuclear holocaust.