In 1948, Neeley Gilmartin pleads guilty for the gruesome death of seven-year-old Aimee Little Spotted Horse, throwing her still living body off a bridge into Black Thunder River.

In 1996, Jefferson Morgan fulfills a life-long dream of owning his own newspaper, by buying out The Bullet from his long time mentor, Old Bell Cockins. He brings his wife to Winchester, Wyoming; visits with his childhood friend, Trey Kerrigan, now the sheriff of the town; and secures a line of credit with the local bank to get his paper over the bad times.

And then the bad times hit: Neeley Gilmartin is back in town, and wants Morgan to tell his story in The Bullet: Neeley Gilmartin claims he did not kill the little girl and wants Morgan to prove it. Morgan only has a few days to do it, too. Neeley Gilmartin is dying -- his time can be counted in days.

Under the heaviest deadline of his life, and amid threats from Kerrigan, and the bank's officers, and from the paper's advertisers, Morgan must struggle with his own conscience to tell a story no matter the consequences, dig deep into the town's past, and unveil a killer who's managed to remain unmasked for almost 50 years.