When teenage Johnny "the Kid" McBane refuses to lose a fixed fight, he flees Chicago and winds up in an army recruiter's office, answering some tough questions. Harder still, he discovers, are the questions he raises for himself once he's a private in the cavalry, learning about horses, guns, Indians--and killing for reasons he can't understand.

This gripping historical novel set during the final years of the Indian Wars explores army life in the American West as it details one boy's struggle to become a man.