Billy Ray works hard all week to play even harder on payday - Saturday night. Whiskey, women, gambling, and a good fistfight are all Billy Ray thinks a man needs. That is until a keen-eyed little man faces him down with something greater than his fists or his guns. In that moment Billy's life changes forever, and he wants to share his discovery. Only how can he explain what he himself doesn't entirely understand? Saddle up for the hard-knock ride Billy takes that changes his life - and the entire town.

Cowboy had been drifting ever since he left his home in Yellow House Creek, Texas, moving from ranch to ranch, following the work for nigh on 15 years. He had saved the pay he sweated so hard for. He looked into the Triple X Ranch, the one they called the Whiskey Brand. It was a bargain...or so it seemed.

Charlie Roy and pale, skinny Sir Arthur, an English gentleman, arrive at the Crown B ranch, north of Cheyenne, which is owned by the sir's sister, Elizabeth, who was widowed just the past winter and left with a ranch that lost nearly all its beef stock from the brutal '86-'87 winter freeze. Additionally, Elizabeth's dead husband's former partner, Justin Harper, is hell-bent on taking over her ranch. But what Harper and his boys don't figure on is interference by the likes of Charlie and the fierceness of the Sir.

Amid the magnificent desolation of the American Southwest ran a river of hope, bringing life to the desert, and pioneers to a forbidding land. They gathered on the banks of the Purgatory...wandering souls on the run from the past...or in search of the future: Hernan Eduardo and his sister Elena, posing as husband and wife to hide her shame; Aaron, who has fled from danger his whole life, and who has to summon the courage to stand up for his rights; and Talks To Ghosts, a native on a vision quest.

After bringing in a band of horse thieves, Sheriff Ben Stillman would like nothing better than to go back home to his wife and wait out the winter storm that is blasting through the Montana mountains. But the storm is about to become the least of the legendary lawman's concerns. A vicious gang of murdering outlaws has taken refuge from the brutal cold and snow in a remote mountain ranch cabin - taking everyone inside hostage. And Stillman is the only chance they've got to get out alive. It's Stillman's duty to save them.