"Since there are plenty of places from Ohio to Idaho for farmers to work the land, it doesn't seem right to Jefferson Parker, the pre-eminent rancher in the up-and-coming town of Brooks, that he has to watch while they buy parcels of land much better suited for grazing cattle. He's determined to consolidate his ranch and his power to influence the railroads to build a line to Brooks and the federal government to grant Wyoming statehood--by buying up the little farms around him if possible, by more drastic means if necessary. The latter include bringing in a hired gun named Cord to sweet-talk, bully, or murder the farmers, whose leader, Wisconsin transplant James Johansen, isn't about to pull up stakes again. The stage seems set for a remake of Shane, with Cord in the Jack Palance role. But Cord, who claims that 'mostly I sell my gun out to stop killing, ' is a lot more nuanced than Palance's Prince of Darkness. He rescues former slave Mal Jones when Parker's bullying son, John, attacks him; he rides hell for leather to bring Johansen's son, Seth, to a medically trained barber when the boy has an attack of appendicitis; he suggests that Johansen set up an irrigation system to help him over droughts and helps him lug heavy irrigation barrels out to his fields. Clearly, the race is on between Parker's sense of Manifest Destiny and Cord's conversion from gunslinger to messiah."--

Wyoming is on the brink of statehood. Leading the charge is Jefferson Parker, the richest cattle baron in the territory. Backed by the Cattlemen's Association, Parker knows that the quickest way to achieve the goal of statehood is through the cattle business. Standing in Parker's way is a group of farmers who, by their very existence, threaten the open range and the way to statehood. So Parker offers to buy out all the farmers in the territory. His offer is rebuked. Leading the farmers is the Johansen family. James Johansen, his wife Sarah and their young son Seth are determined to make a go of their small farm. James bands the farmers into a unified group and they hold off Parker and his allies. Until the mysterious gunfighter Cord arrives in town, hired by none other than Parker. Cord's assignment is to help Parker broker a deal with the farmers to buy out their land. Cord is as persuasive with words as he is with a gun, and the deal might have worked except for Parker's hotheaded son who interferes and forces Cord to kill him. Thus begins the range war. Farmers on one side, Parker on the other, Cord caught in the middle.

Wyoming is on the brink of statehood, and cattle baron Jefferson Parker is leading the charge. Along with the Cattleman's Association, Parker knows the quickest way to that goal is through the cattle business. Standing in his way is a group of farmers who threaten the open range.

When cattle baron Jefferson Parker's offers to buy out the farmers in the Wyoming territory in a bid to move toward statehood, he is refused by a group of farmers, until an effort to negotiate by a gunfighter named Cord goes wrong and a range war erupts.

Wyoming is on the brink of statehood, and cattle baron Jefferson Parker is leading the charge.

Since there are plenty of places from Ohio to Idaho for farmers to work the land, it doesn't seem right to Jefferson Parker, the pre-eminent rancher in the up-and-coming town of Brooks, that he has to watch while they buy parcels of land much better suited for grazing cattle. He's determined to consolidate his ranch and his power to influence the railroads to build a line to Brooks and the federal government to grant Wyoming statehood--by buying up the little farms around him if possible, by more drastic means if necessary. The latter include bringing in a hired gun named Cord to sweet-talk, bully, or murder the farmers, whose leader, Wisconsin transplant James Johansen, isn't about to pull up stakes again.