Across rivers of blood and plains of tears, he led a wagon train toward a country fighting to be born. . .

Miners dug for fortunes. Soldiers died on open plains. And a few brave men drove the wooden freight wagons into the wild land. Now, master Western novelist Ralph Compton tells the real story of the tough-as-leather men who first blazed the way into the untamed frontier.

Texas! For the pioneers who streamed out of Missouri it was a land of dreams and freedom. Veteran wagon boss Chance McQuade, a man deadly with a pistol and Sharps, had signed on to take a hundred families there. But the man who hired McQuade was joining the wagon train, and turning it into a brawling, rolling city of sin and violence. Now, on the hard drive West, McQuade faces Kiowa, lightening storms, and killers behind his back-all to reach a promised land that's erupting into war.