Dunner Baltz was neglected as a child, but tough and in possession of an extreme savagery. His father needs to move the family from Lebanon, Pennsylvania. Ultimately, they go south. The collapse of the great steel industry and the resulting movement of the workers and others were all interconnected The Great War had ended and with it the great expansion of the American economy begins. For Dunner and the family, it is a different transition. The activities of the Ku Klux Klan and others reach deep into his life. Violence and survival become a complex web which he navigates with a mentor, Colonel Richard Campbell, a decorated WWII veteran, an expert in killing who harbors a vengeance against the KKK which he transfers to Dunner.