摘要

Lincoln County Crucible opens with the Sante Fe Ring in near-total control of southeastern New Mexico. Young Jethro is undecided about remaining or riding into the sunset. His head tells him a man with a price on his own head should drift on. But what of the widowed Susan McSween? Or Billy the Kid? Or the starving Mescalero Apaches? Or the poor Anglo farmers and Mexican peons strangling from "the ring's" bloody yoke?