When does a boy become a man? When does he cross that invisible line where marbles and tops and playlike don't matter anymore? Is it when he begins to imagine what it would be like to wake up next to the girl that lives inside his soul? Is it when he buries his best friend wearin' a coat still stained with that friend's blood? Is it when he knows in his heart of hearts he could kill a man and not even think twice about it? These are the questions that rage in young Crawford Cashion's mind as he rides to his destiny in the turbulent years of the Range Wars in southwest Texas. Though the country has turned a page with a new century, the Old West still lingers on, and so does the prairie. People may change. Attitudes and philosophies come and go, but the prairie—the HIGH LONESOME—will always stay the same—unforgiving of weakness, immutable and severe.