A comic extravaganza. This book is comic relief from the first to the last page as we meet the four central characters and follow them through their escapades as the first 'hard-core' environmentalists of the American West. We meet George Washington Hayduke III, a retired green beret and as crude as they come, as he repays the sheriff's foul treatment that he has received by stealing his car and leaving it on the railway tracks. Doc, a medical doctor in a small town, expresses "Everyone has to have a hobby" as we find him engaged in his: he is burning down the billboards on the side of the highway. Bonnie, a beautiful but opinionated young woman, and Seldom Seen Smith, an unkempt wilderness guide complete the set as they set off to challenge the corporations that want to exploit the great outwest.

...oh my desert
yours is the only death I cannot bear.
—Richard Shelton