Jonas Madigan is dying. He spent his life taming towns and upholding justice across the west with no regrets. Along the way, Madigan took the measure of good men like Smoke Jensen, who has traveled to Salt Lick, Texas to pay his respects to the lawman. But when bandits gun down the small town’s current marshal—and Smoke sends the killers to Boot Hill—Madigan asks his friend to wear the badge and keep the peace until a permanent replacement is sworn in.
 
Turns out the bandits were members of Bishop’s Mauraders, a twenty-man gang of trigger-happy thieves led by the vicious and venomous Snake Bishop—and they’ve set their sights on Salt Lick. They’re due to arrive at the same time as a monstrous blizzard that’s covering up the countryside. Now, it’s up to Smoke to turn the townspeople into a posse to defend their lives and land from both mother nature and man’s worst nature . . .