Dime novels had given Ben Cameron a legendary reputation as The Scottish Gun. A Texas Ranger lauded by Buffalo Bill Cody, a Pinkerton agent, a hired assassin--Cameron had supposedly done it all. But reality is far from fiction as it's a washed-up, drunken Cameron who rides into the dying mining town of Purgatoire. The townsfolk only know what they've read, though, and when a series of murders plunges the town into panic, Cameron is the first man they look to for protection. Can the fallen hero reinvent himself yet again to catch the killer?