A novel in the Spur Award–winning author's blazing American epic of blood, bullets, and brotherhood . . . "Richards writes . . . with the flavor of the real West." —Elmer Kelton

Long John O'Malley is only nineteen years old, but he's no greenhorn. The oldest and boldest of the O'Malley brothers, Long John cut his teeth tangling with Comanche at the tender age of sixteen. He risked his life to rescue a group of captive women settlers—and forged his own destiny as a hero in the making.

Now he's taking on his biggest challenge yet: riding shotgun on a wagon train across the hostile Nebraska Territory. It's a treacherous trail, and it's not long before the young Texan is earning his paycheck by fighting off a tribe of bloodthirsty Sioux. But the real test lies in the journey ahead—a genuine ride to hell and back, from the Rocky Mountains to Sante Fe and all the way home—that will make Long John O'Malley either a living legend . . . or a dead one.