A small-town sheriff in the American West enlists the help of a disabled man, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail the brother of the local bad guy.

As the railroad builders advance unstoppably through the Arizona desert on their way to the sea, Jill arrives in the small town of Flagstone with the intention of starting a new life.

The Man With No Name enters the Mexican village of San Miguel in the midst of a power struggle among the three Rojo brothers and sheriff John Baxter. When a regiment of Mexican soldiers bearing gold intended to pay for new weapons is waylaid by the Rojo brothers, the stranger inserts himself into the middle of the long-simmering battle...

In Apache territory, a supply Army column heads for the next fort, an ex-scout searches for the killer of his Native wife, and a housewife abandons her husband to rejoin her Apache lover's tribe.

In early 20th-century Montana, Col. William Ludlow lives on a ranch in the wilderness with his sons, Alfred, Tristan, and Samuel. Eventually, the unconventional but close-knit family are bound by loyalty, tested by war, and torn apart by love, as told over the course of several decades in this epic saga.