The thrilling saga of a boy turned gunslinger, and the legend that would chase him across the West...

"I was a wanted killer, and that made me an outlaw, and I forced myself to think hard and to accept myself for just that. If I was to be an outlaw, I told myself, I'd be a hard one, and I'd be a good one. I'd be the god damnest outlaw that ever come down the pike..."

Scrawny, young Melvin Parmlee lit out of Texas wearing a pair of old overalls and riding a swayback horse. His crime: killing a man with an axe handle for shooting his dog. Out ahead lay a land of prairie, mountains, boomtowns, whores, gold and outlaws. And behind him was a long, twisty trail that was getting more crowded with enemies every day.

Robert Conley's saga of Melvin Parmlee is a rollicking tale, an authentic portrait of the American West, and the gripping drama of a boy becoming a man -amongst the wildest men of all.