Jubal Dark has been the Sheriff of Francine County, Texas for twenty years, but Dark's enemy, Texas Ranger Buck Nevins, has convinced a Houston homicide detective to run against him. Dark's failure to solve a two-year-old rape and murder, coupled with his approaching sixtieth birthday, have led many voters to decide that Jubal should be replaced.

Four years earlier Dark had captured the wanted killer, Carl Alvin Spence, and shown him up for the back-stabbing coward he was. Spence vowed revenge. Now, two weeks before the election, Spence and two other murders have escaped from prison and are heading across Texas running for the Mexican border.

With these fugitives on the loose, Dark no longer has any time or energy to worry about losing the election, which is now only days away. Looking down at the bodies of his friends murdered by the escaped convicts, Dark resolves to trade his star, and even his life, if that's what it will take to bring these killers to Texas Justice.