John Trent has survived everything life has thrown at him. Joining the army, he was sent to the jungle wars in Central America, then to South America, and finally to Southeast Asia. A woodsman by nature, it took all his inherent skills not to die in those jungles. The school was hard. You learned, or you died. John Trent learned.

When the Fall occurred Trent was in the states and witnessed first hand the terrorist attacks that brought about the slow crumbling of the mightiest nation on earth. He survived the huge hordes of mankind flooding out of the cities, looking for food, clean water, or any other dream that made sense. Trent survived the starvation and disease that followed.

The story opens with Trent riding courier between army bases in the Ozarks. When he is attacked by raiders they discover something about John Trent. He is coldly brutal in any kind of fight. Though a top man in his field, he realizes he has to stop. His temper is too short. The killing is coming easier all the time, and he just doesn't try to avoid it anymore.

When Trent reports to his commander at the army base, he is offered a job in the just formed U. S. Marshall Corp. His first assignment will be Big Springs, Missouri. The small town is being taken over by raiders, and represents one of the few hopes of survival for settlers in the frontier because of its seclusion and pure water supply.

In Kat Stephens, Trent will find a love and passion that surpasses anything he has ever known. In Pagan Reeves, he will find a ruthless adversary whose treachery knows no bounds. In Chico Cruz, an ex-mercenary and raider, he will find unexpected friendship that can only come when two people have traveled the same kind of trails, and faced the same dangers.

Intertwined within the story will be the greatest problem of all, one that tests all of Trent's woodland skills. A serial killer is littering the forest with mutilated women, and there are absolutely no clues to follow.

In the end, Trent will deal frontier justice to Pagan Reeves and secure the survival of the town. He will also find the murderer and have to make a decision no one should ever have to make -- life, or death, for a friend.