Independence Day, 1871. The Civil War is finished, but in "Bleeding Kansas", old wounds heal slowly. The shooting started in Kansas long before Ft. Sumter, and if some men have their way, it will continue, even six years after Appomattox Court House. Crill Falkner, a volunteer Union infantryman from New York, has come west to forget the war, and to try to leave behind the anguish he found at home after the fighting was done. With the help of Bonnie Little, an English widow whose travels, like his, have halted in Kansas, he has made the small town of Marietta his home. And he has reluctantly accepted the lawman's badge the town fathers pressed upon him. Alexander Chastain, a former Confederate guerilla and veteran of the border wars, is known to the residents of Marietta as Bernard Smith. He has come to town to settle a score. Chastain continued the fight against the hated free-soilers after the peace was signed. Due largely to the efforts of Crill Falkner, Chastain came to grief at Marietta in 1866, losing several men in the process, and more to the point, a large measure of his pride. He has kept his head down for a while, but now it's time to have another go at the Redlegs and their Yankee lawman. Falkner may have come out on top the first time they butted heads, but things are about to change.