When the Northern Pacific had ceased operations at the start of the Panic of 73, Cap had been stranded with his survey crew in the middle of Montana Territory. Since then, he’d lived a hard, solitary life. Recently he’s spent a few months as a gambler in the untamed town of Deadwood in Dakota Territory. But neither was what he wanted out of life. When he heard that the Northern Pacific had come out of bankruptcy and would soon start laying track west out of Bismarck, he left Deadwood in the hope of returning to his old life. Just a day’s ride from Bismarck, he discovered a disaster. He thought he’d seen it all over the past four years until he spotted scores of dead cavalrymen scattered across the Dakota plains. He couldn’t do anything but to avoid the Lakota who had won the battle, so he swung south and nudged is mules to a faster pace. It wasn’t long before he found an abandoned farmhouse that had suffered from a recent raid. He was about to ride past the open doorway when he heard a child’s cry. That whimper made him stop before it changed his life.
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