Well past his prime, Robert Fallon now fights the battles of politics to save the country he cherishes from civil war. It is 1832, and the high tariffs that protect northern industry are crippling the South. President Andrew Jackson thinks force is the answer to the South's threats of secession. Robert must pay a final-hour visit to Washington, as an appeal to Jackson and Congress to pass a compromise tariff before the country is torn apart. Like his father and grandfather before him, James Fallon is a man of vision and iron will, determined to succeed. But where his forebears were men of the sea, he is a man of the land, the vast land of northern Mexico - a land called Texas. James sets out for Stephen Austin's colony of Americans with dreams of a horse-breeding empire. The land is harsh enough, but he soon learns the Fallon past harbors deadly shadows - Cordelia Applegate and Gerard Fourrier. With political influence, hired pistoleros, and Comanches, they seek to destroy all Fallons.