U.S. Deputy Page Murdock is ordered by federal judge Harlan A. Blackthorne to Cape Hell, Mexico, to verify a report that former Conferate captain Oscar Childress is raising an army to take over Mexico City --after which he intends to turn north to rekindle the Civil War. As Murdock heads south on a steam train through a murderous desert of a foreign land, with only a engineer who can't be trusted, and a fireman who has a few secrets of his own, he can only hope to stop a man bent on wholesale massacre.