Tyra Duncan rejects her Victorian upbringing to ride wild on the Kansas plains, much like her idol Calamity Jane. Hays City, wildest town in the west, attracts Tyra. Convinced she would make its ideal sheriff, she breaks up a fight, shooting a poker player and carting him off to jail. Shaken to the soles of her boots when she meets the same charismatic gambler again, she knows she will follow him wherever he goes. Zach Benson rides with no ties, seemingly free. Unseen are the nightmares of his past—shadows of innocent lives taken, horrors of the battlefield, abandonment of his younger brother to an outlaw gang. After rescuing his brother from unwarranted hanging, the three make a perilous journey across western Texas, encountering flash floods and unsavory characters. Not until a sniper's bullet explodes their idyll do they realize they are pursued by a killer bent on revenge. They head into New Mexico Territory, where sanctuary with the Spanish Angels at the Altar of the Sun could save them...or spell their doom if they are found.