Twister Malone and Chuckaluck Thompson are making their way through a West Texas canyon when they smell death. Finally, the two emerge onto the mesa, where they encounter the site of a massacre. A whole family of deer lies dead around a small pond, their skeletons bleached by the Texas sun. Someone has poisoned the water hole. Then a rider comes around the corner, rifle in hand, and gets the drop on Twister and Chuckaluck. The Widow Kelso is a hardened old woman, and she's ready to kill. Someone has been trying to drive her off her land, and if Twister and Chuckaluck don't solve the mystery of the poisoned well fast, the deer won't be the only ones lying dead in the sun.