"Its 1917, and the Mexican Revolution has the Big Bend of Texas aflame. But the firestorm is no greater than the one inside newspaper reporter Jack Landon. Disillusioned, he flees down the road to nowhere and finds himself in Esperanza. Populated by people of Mexican heritage, the small village on the Texas bank of the Rio Grande is a target of Texas Rangers Company B, which unjustly considers it a bandit den. Jack befriends a teenaged boy and his adult sister, Mary, who teaches in the Esperanza school. Smitten by her, Jack accepts a position as teacher of the older students. As Jack assimilates to life in Esperanza, the threat of Rangers looms large, manifesting itself in extortion and physical assault. When bandits raid nearby Brite Ranch, it sets in motion retaliation by bigoted Rangers and their accomplices.

Soon, a day of reckoning descends, and it envelops Jack and Mary and the entire village. This novel is based on what actually happened at Porvenir, Texas, in 1918-the blackest moment in Texas Rangers history"--.