The Texas Frontier, 1865: The Civil War is over and Texas is reluctantly yielding to the Union soldiers that are spreading across the state, even into the dangerous Comanche country. David "Rusty" Shannon, proud member of a "ranging company" that protects settlers from Indian depredations, finds that the rangers are being disbanded. He makes his way home to his land on the Red River, hoping to take up the life of a farmer and the hand of the beloved girl he left behind, Geneva Monohan. But Geneva has married in Rusty's long absence and the country has filled with hostiles - not just Indians, but hate-filled Confederates, overbearing Union soldiers, and army renegades. Rusty's youth as a captive of Comanches returns to haunt him when he takes as a prisoner Badger Boy, a white child taken from his murdered parents by a Comanche warrior.