It's the summer of 1880. The railroad and Ulysses S. Grant are coming to Leadville. Murder and conspiracy ride the unfinished rails...

The railroad is coming west, all the way to the Leadville and its rich silver mines in the Rocky Mountains. Like other residents in this Colorado boomtown, Inez Stannert regards the news as mixed. With her business partnership in the Silver Queen Saloon shaky and the bonds of family tightening (her husband is still missing and her young son is still back East), Inez doesn't need the lawlessness of Leadville to turn, once again, into murder. But Inez isn't the only one with iron ties to the past. Some folks have wicked memories of the Civil War, others a stake in the competing railroad lines. And Inez's friend, photographer Susan Carothers, gets caught in the crossfire...