"Immigrant cooper named constable and then sheriff investigates a girl murdered in her bed and tracks her husband who escaped in Grandma's buggy. Capturing him in the high mountains in Bonanza Flat, the founding sheriff decides not to kill the son of a bitch and sets in motion a long and broken path to a tradition of justice where none existed before in Summit County, Utah Territory. Capture comes swift. Conviction takes longer. Execution drags on for years. Life in a growing frontier town that starts with six people and no buildings either demands frontier justice or unfolds its apparent willingness to assist the murderer's effort to avoid his fate. Indian troubles, vigilantes' murderous justice, and a railroad hell-on-wheels town threaten the founding sheriff's promise to the murdered girl's mother"--