At seventeen, Ty Bonte's life revolves around the seasons and the work to be done on his father's Nebraska Sandhills ranch. Long abandoned by his mother for the comforts of town life, Ty learns from his father that violence is as much a part of being a man as hard work. When he and his drinking buddy Harney Rivers, beat up two young Indians from the nearby Rosebud Reservation and leave them to die, Ty flees from home and the arrest warrant that has been issued for their crime.

Ty settles in Kansas, making a quiet but good living as a horse trader. Reinventing himself as his own kind of man, he tries to forget his past - the sudden death of his brother, the rejection by his mother, the drunken beatings by his father, and the night he and Harney drove onto the Rosebud Reservation. He takes in Dakota Carlyle, a woman who seems to find solace in horses but rarely in people and who has her own past.

But before Ty and Dakota have a chance to make a life for themselves, Harney Rivers suddenly reappears and commits an act of shattering brutality that forces Ty to return to Nebraska. His quest for retribution, resolution, and redemption culminates in a furious and mesmerzing courtroom battle between the two men.