Winner of the Western Writers Of America Spur AwardWinner of the Forward National Literature Award for historical fictionWinner of the Western Fictioneers Peacemaker Award for Best Western First NovelWinner of the Kansas Notable Book Award from the State Library of KansasBased on actual events, this is the epic story of 1871 Abilene, Kansas.Deep in the vast vacancy of the wilderness prairie, a tiny ferocious speck of humanity is famous and infamous throughout the world. Abilene is a town like no other, the first of its kind. Saturated in greed and easy money, it is a place in which good and evil are so evenly matched that no one knows which will triumph. As the shipping point for immense numbers of cattle driven north from Texas, Abilene is an exotic boomtown. In its Texastown district, recently hired marshal, Wild Bill Hickok, the West's most famous gunman, struggles to control streets teeming with thousands of drunken, restive cowboys. Violence seems a certainty.For young Will Merritt, though, Abilene is his first real home. Surrounded by a tight circle of friends, Will is confident he understands his world. Acceptance, however, has a condition--cruel intolerance. Like most in Abilene, Will and his friends despise the shabby settlers whose new farms threaten to crowd out the cattle that enrich the town. And no one is more intolerant than Will's best friend, Jasper, a boy who seethes with inner rage and delights in tormenting any settler he encounters.But events are about to transform Will from a self-centered youth to a young man of courage and genuine honor. Will's feelings begin to change when he meets Anna, a poor settler girl whose dignity and determination test his deepest beliefs.As the scaffolding of his life begins to wobble, Will discovers that his flamboyant father, J.T. Merritt, has a secret, something hidden far out in the remote prairie. When J.T. makes his stunning secret public, everything Abilene believes about its future is challenged, and the Merritts become outcasts. Believing that Will has betrayed him, Jasper now turns his darkest side toward his former friend.And all the while, Will and the town are rushing toward an extraordinary tragedy involving Marshal Hickok. An event that will seal Will and Anna in a lifelong romance.