Marshal Matt Dillon’s session with a fortune-teller — who sees blood, betrayal, and violent death in his future — is interrupted by gunfire. Outside, wealthy rancher Colonel Roberts lies wounded, shot by Tom Gillespie as payback for the massacre of thirty-three Confederate prisoners — including Gillespie’s father — and the theft of more than thirty thousand dollars in Yankee gold.

As Matt keeps Gillespie under lock and key, Roberts’s foreman — a fast, deadly gunman — whips his cowboys into a lynching party. And he seems determined to fulfill the fortune-teller’s prophecy by killing Matt if it’s the last thing he does...