If it hadn't been for John Paradise arriving in town the same time as a government payroll amounting to sixty-five thousand dollars in gold, Marshal Jeremy Six might have passed a peaceful Fourth of July weekend. But the one-armed killer with a reputation of having gunned down fifty-seven men in his time was perched, sphinx-like, on a barstool, "waiting for a friend." And Harry Rose, a fat dude from the East, arrived with his entourage in Spanish Flat, gravitated toward the Drover's Rest Saloon "to wait for his partner." The talent accumulating in town made the marshal itch. Then as four men were shot dead and the payroll disappeared, Jeremy knew he was refereeing a free-for-all between two bands of professional bandits.