In this sequel to The Calling, Sheriff Luke Atwell and his deputies face individual and collective challenges from outlaws, gunfighters, renegade Indians, card sharps, and a thieving medicine show in a Kansas town in the 1870's. The personal lives of the lawmen also change and nature takes its destructive toll on the town and its residents. When a black neighbor's family is attacked and the oldest son killed, the sheriff gets the help of federal law enforcement and they chase a band of marauding ex-Confederates out to undo the changes resulting from the Civil War.