The saga of the Haze family, which began in "The Red Clay Desert", continues. When religious zealots burned the Haze family's new farm in the north, Kyle Haze is forced to return to the old fallout shelter in his desert home. With an enemy behind and an enemy ahead Kyle often finds it necessary to use deadly force. "When are we gonna fight back?" Cousin Bony had demanded. "Now ain't the time, Bony," Kyle had answered. "we're out in the open with fires burnin' behind us and we got no targets! If we shoot back now and kill one of 'em, they got a reason to just go and kill all of us! They don't get to say when the real fight is gonna take place. That decision belongs to you and me!" During the travels of the Haze clan Kyle finds that he must deal with strange things that happened during the early riotous years. Law and order struggled, survival replaced education, destruction became a hobby and polite society was replaced by barbarism. The one desert constant that Kyle understands is a killer sun. The sun eliminates those that are weak and those that don't understand.