On the day twenty-five-year-old Lewis Taylor was released from the Texas State Prison, he received little attention as he walked free after serving five years for a crime he didn't commit. His only interest was in getting back to Gila Bend, Texas, a quiet farming community about which he had only warm, idyllic memories. During his years in prison, he had survived by thinking fondly of the home he'd known since boyhood - and of Darla Winslow. What he finds upon his return is a town dramatically changed. Once a happy and carefree place to live, it is now populated by people who are angry and afraid. One man, Captain Archer Ringewald, has taken control of the town, and now he's turning the townspeople, even Darla, against Taylor.