The Civil War is over and Confederate Texas is reluctantly yielding to Union military peace-keepers and regulations imposed by Washington. David "Rusty" Shannon is the member of a "ranging company" attempting to protect Texas settlers from Comanche depredations. He learns that the rangers are being disbanded. He makes his way home to his farm on the Colorado River, and discovers that the land around his home is filled with hostiles Indians, Confederates, and conscription-dodging renegades. Rusty's youth as a captive of the Comanches returns to haunt him when, in pursuit of Indian raiders, he finds the wounded Badger Boy, a white child who was orphaned and kidnapped by a Comanche warrior, and raised as an Indian for 5 years. Rusty takes on the task of nursing the boy back to health and trying to reunite him with relatives, if any have survived.
