Three men came over the horizon. Rance Tucker, a rancher, guided his buckboard through the pass, a double-barrelled shotgun by his side. Up the valley rode Tom London, a high-stakes gambler who always seemed to lose more than he won. The third, Barry Home, walked in over the flats from the railroad. Barry had once been an ordinary cowpuncher and a good-natured jester. Now he was tempered and hardened by a stretch in prison for a crime he hadn't committed. Home, Tucker and London are all headed for a violent confrontation in the town of Loomis -- and not all of them will live to see the morning.The Dikkons and the Quinces have always been mortal enemies. Now there's only one Quince left -- and he's determined to pay the Dikkons back for the wrongs they have done to his family. But in a fall from a horse, he loses his memory and his wits, and finds himself at the mercy of the Dikkons clan. They, in turn, are faced with a problem; the code of the West dictates that they can't harm this enemy who can now do them no harm. It is a mortal dilemma made worse when love blossoms between Barney Quince and Louise Dikkon -- a love that some are determined to keep from flowering.