Caleb Marcus is a Peacemaker, a roving lawman tasked with maintaining the peace and bringing control to magic users on the frontier. A Peacemaker isn't supposed to take a life-but sometimes, it's kill or be killed… After a war injury left him half-scoured of his power, Caleb and his jackalope familiar have been shipped out West, keeping them out of sight and out of the way of more useful agents. And while life in the wild isn't exactly Caleb's cup of tea, he can't deny that being amongst folk who aren't as powerful as he is, even in his poor shape, is a bit of a relief. But Hope isn't like the other small towns he's visited. The children are being mysteriously robbed of their magical capabilities. There's something strange and dark about the local land baron who runs the school. Cheyenne tribes are raiding the outlying homesteads with increasing frequency and strange earthquakes keep shaking the very ground Hope stands on. Something's gone very wrong in the Wild West, and it's up to Caleb to figure out what's awry before he ends up at the end of the noose-or something far worse…