Begins with Confederate captain Jerod Robin waiting to be hanged for murder in Austin. Also in the hoosegow waiting for the hangman is blustery English novelist Edmund Varney, who is accused of stealing the horse of Lt. Tom Custer, the famous general's younger brother. Their jailer and tormentor is Santana Leatherwood, leader of a cold-blooded family of misfits who want Robin dead because of a family feud?and Varney dead just for the fun of it.