The railroad is coming west, all the way to Leadville and its rich Rocky Mountain mines, not to mention its millionaires. And who is coming to celebrate the arrival of the Denver & Rio Grande but Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the United States and former commander of the Union armies.
Like other residents in the Colorado boomtown this summer of 1880, Inez Stannert regards the news as mixed. With her business partnership in the Silver Queen Saloon shaky and the bonds of family tightening (her husband is still missing and her young son is still back East), Inez doesn’t need the lawlessness of Leadville to turn, once again, into murder.
But Inez isn’t the only one with iron ties to the past. Some folks have wicked memories of the war, others have a stake in the competing railroad lines. And photographer Susan Carothers, Inez’s friend, is caught in the deadly crossfire….