If a hard life makes harder men then Eli Gault is cast-iron in boots. Raised by a merciless drunken fire-and-brimstone preacher young Eli avenged himself upon his pious pa. Then after he took all the kind charity he could handle from the local ladies Eli's killer instincts forced him to go on the run with nothing but his guts and guns to keep him alive. But Eli's true education begins when he meets Cutter Sharpe - a legendary gunhand.