In eighteen seventy-one, Jane Withersteen owns a vast ranch and Amber Spring in the wild southern Utah borderland, making her a powerful landowner in a remote settlement. Surrounded by peace-loving people, she uses her wealth to befriend the poor and unfortunate, including Gentiles who are hated by her fellow Mormons. Her life is disrupted when church elders, led by the ruthless and jealous Tull, demand she cease her friendship with an outcast Gentile rider named Venters, whom they ruthlessly hound and attempt to ruin. When Tull threatens Venters with a brutal public whipping, a mysterious and formidable stranger named Lassiter rides out of the purple sage and intervenes, saving the young man’s life.
Lassiter is a gun-man hunted by many, but to Jane he brings an unexpected alliance, though his avowed purpose in Cottonwoods is to find the grave of Milly Erne, a woman whose tragic fate is tied to the dark history of the settlement. As Tull and the invisible hand of the Bishop tighten their grip on Jane to force her submission and compliance with church rule, her vast herds are driven off and her riders called away. Venters escapes into the treacherous labyrinth of Deception Pass, where he discovers the hidden retreat of the notorious rustler chief Oldring and his feared Masked Rider. Amidst mounting violence, a stampede of cattle, and secret plots, Jane struggles to preserve her property, her independence, and her faith. The narrative weaves the threads of desperate romance, frontier hardship, and unrelenting fanaticism, leading toward a climactic reckoning in the wild cañons.
