Outside the mountain community of Sagerville in beautiful Bingham County, two hunters are discovered shot to death on opening day. An antihunter avenging the annual slaughter of whitetails is suspected and, fearing the worst, local leaders worry that thousands of visiting sportsmen will travel elsewhere, along with their money. However, influential businessman Harmon Drake ambitiously persuades his counterparts that the prospect of a serial killer is premature because the second victim, a local man, may have perished because of a hunting accident. Weakened by a recent judgment of the court against his weekly newspaper, the Tier Sentinel, publisher Meredith Tome goes along and prints a story omitting mention of a sniper. But this decision, his friend and distict attorney Ed Rusack informs him, will force the killer to strike again. Likewise will publisher Tome learn the killer is after much more than hunters. And for this, too, he bears some responsibility.