When big corporate coal strip-mining interests begin to take over a ranching town in southeastern Montana--wide-open coulee and bluff country--all hell breaks loose. It seems the land is fighting back: vast sage flats erupt in fire, massive storms blast down from all directions, rattlesnakes strike from out of nowhere, and an extinct buffalo wolf is heard howling in the night. One man tries to hold back the tide of disaster caused by corporate greed: Joe Graves, a rancher whose family has farmed this arid, harsh land for generations.
Graves knows the land better than anyone, hunting and fishing its broad acres all of his life. He considers the land an extension of himself. What he doesn't know is that his father sold the mineral rights to the ranch-and Graves is about to find out that Dark Star (the corporate coal giant) is coming to claim those rights along with his water. What Dark Star doesn't realize is that it will have more than just a mere man to fight--the very elements are set against them.
Steeped in atmosphere and electrically charged with emotion and suspense, this graphic, shocking novel firmly establishes John Holt's authority as a novelist, and reveals his own dark vision of what "civilization" is doing to the West.