First of Two Books About New Mexico's Bloody Lincoln County War

This story opens after the terrible Lincoln gun battle where Alexander McSween and many of his partisans perish. The notorious "Santa Fe Ring," a crooked triumvirate composed of elements of the United States Army, Territorial government, and extortionistic merchants are in near-total control of Southeastern New Mexico. Young Jethro is undecided about staying in the country 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 of his friend, Billy the Kid? Or of the starving Mescalero Apaches? Or of the poor Anglo and Mexican farmers strangling from the "Ring's" bloody yoke? It was Jethro Spring's

Lincoln County Crucible