Frank Claymore is not easy to like - to admire, maybe, but not to like. He is cantankerous, stubborn, and intolerant - the very qualities that make him a success as an open-range cattleman on the West Texas frontier. In one of his most memorable novels, acclaimed Western writer Elmer Kelton follows Frank Claymore's life from the time of the Civil War to the dawn of the 20th century - through marriage, births, deaths, and a creeping change in the society that once hailed him as a hero, but which later has him condemned and tried for murder.