Men flooded the Old West after the Civil War. Some came looking to start a new life, leaving homes that had been destroyed in the war. In the mountains, men settled themselves onto land that was empty, filed claims, built homes and began raising families. "They were pioneers."
Few of them left their guns behind. And, some of them carried their violent ways with them. Those men were used to killing. They'd grown accustomed to taking what they wanted with a gun.
It remained for tough, battle-hardened men who were principled to stand against the lawlessness that threatened to overcome the good men and women who settled in the West. These men refused to surrender, refused to be intimidated, and refused to back down.
Ben Hayes was such a man. He had been a soldier. He understood war. When the outlaws and violent men came against him and his friends, for him it was just another war.
His view was summed up in a remark he made to a friend. ""The easiest way to end a war is if the other side surrenders. And if they don't, then you just kill them until there's no one left to fight.""
Ben Hayes and Artie Longer lived in the West for several years after the Civil War. Hayes spent time riding for the Texas Rangers, then as a cowboy and a hunter for ranches down near the Brazos where he often was hired to chase rustlers across the border. Artie spent his years as a cowboy, once making a cattle drive across Texas and into Kansas. They met up in Texas and became friends.
Hayes had an interest in seeing California and Longer, who had little else to do, agreed that California would be a place he'd like to see. They started out in Kansas, dropped down to Texas and cut across the top of New Mexico. Hayes had been through Arizona, all the way to Tuscon and Phoenix, and he'd heard that going to California through the south was the best way to go, though it was a pretty dry ride.
As they are riding south through the northern end of Arizona Territory, they stop at the Red Mountain Ranch. It's a small ranch nestled in the mountains amongst the many pine trees there, with a sprinkling of open pastures with lush grass. The ranch is owned by Colonel William J. Harken and his daughter, Mary, who'd recently lost her husband. She has a small boy, Billy.
They learn that a local rancher, Jacob Jarvis, has hired gunmen and has managed to intimidate several of the small ranchers into selling. He's threatened Harken and made it clear to several in the community that he wants Mary as well as the ranch.
Ben Hayes is one of those principled men, not a man to walk away from someone needing help. He turns on the gunmen who are attacking the ranch with a vengeance. His friend, Artie Longer says of him:
"One minute, you're looking at a man who looks to be a gentle, mild-mannered dude, except for the black, holstered Colt at his side, then quicker than a big cat jumping on a calf, you're seeing a man whose eyes have turned as cold and frosty as a Montana January morning, and whose face has lost every sign of gentle. Everything about the man changes. I've seen some full-growed, battle-tough men back away from him, startled, and suddenly afraid at what they were looking at. It was as though they'd come suddenly on a hungry wolf who was looking at them as its next meal."
Hayes and Longer recruit two other men to help at the ranch . The battles that follow become deadly lessons for Jarvis. Ben Hayes is a tactician, a warrior whose mettle has been tested in battle. Jarvis will come to wish he'd never heard of the Red Mountain Ranch.
And, he'll come to regret ever coming face to face with Ben Hayes.
"This is a western story that even the Dean of Western Fiction, Louis L'Amour would have enjoyed. "