Joe was eighteen when he saddled up his horse and left the side-hill farm in Tennessee for points west. He started the long trek of finding his brother's killer. Somewhere out yonder where the long grass grew he would find the mate to the gun which hung low on his hip; the one with the Bluejay engraved on the handle. When he did he knew what would follow. There would be smokin' guns and a family account would be settled.

Losing their farm in Carolina to the ruthless and greedy Callahans who had scarfed up the unpaid bank notes, the Bonnetts headed west. It was when the wagon train bound for Oregon was a little ways out of South Pass and close to the Sweetwater River that Matt Bonnett slowed his team and pulled out of the train.There was a stream running from the base of the distant blue mountains and the prettiest little valley the eye ever saw. He knew then that this was where they would call home. What he didn't know, was that the Callahans were not far behind and when they arrived there would be gunsmoke, blood, and death to see who remained in the little green valley.

The Slash W Ranch owned by Dan Whitley lay between the big ranches of Tom Synder and Jason King who were determined to have it. All their efforts to buy him out proved futile. It was Johnny Synder, Tom's youngest son, who decided if it couldn't be bought with money, he would take it with guns. He led the group of five men on the night they brutally murdered the Whitley family and opened up the ranch for his greedy father. The foul and wicked deed was laid to others, and the murderers rode the range free. No one in Salmon flats knew that Dan Whitley's wife was the Bonnetts' kinfolks. They came from the mountains of Tennessee and Carolina, and to them, family ties were sacred. A mysterious youngster sent a wire from the town to Two Bluffs, Colorado. Two Bluffs was the last given address of Billy Bailey, whose mother was also a Bonnett. The range had been running green for the killers until one day strangers began showing up in town. Strangers with low, tied down guns, and a family account to settle. Only three came; but if more were needed there was at least a hundred scattered between the Mississippi and California. Before their business was finished the range would be stained crimson, and the death of the Whitleys avenged.

There was bad blood between Hoyt and the Bonnetts. He carried the bullet scar where Riley, a Texas Ranger, had almost killed him. Leaving one dead in the dusty streets of El Paso, Hoyt and his partner made a run for it. Miles away they stopped in the small town of Jacksboro and to Hoyt's good fortune, he became the sheriff. He devised a scheme where he could relieve the town of its bankroll and kill two more Bonnetts in the process, then retire to some remote area and live out his life in ease. But some men don't kill easy and the Bonnetts were men from a feuding clan. They had been up the creek and over the mountain and to them 'root hog or die' was a way of life.

It was a raw and lawless time. The opening up of the west brought people from all walks and stations of life. Among them were the ranchers and the sheepmen who found it almost impossible to live at peace. For the most part, the law was restricted to local towns, if there was any, and disputes outside of it were settled on the spot, and generally in the court of smoking guns. To the Rangers, the town of Cottonwood had become a trouble spot. Captain Ferdinand's orders to Riley were clean it up! 'Tennessee or Texas style'.

All that Calvin Bonnett wanted when he came west was a settling place. A place where he and his family could run a small ranch and live in peace. What he found was rustlers and outlaws that left him for dead on a desolate hillside. The killers made two mistakes. They didn't stay to bury him and they didn't make sure no one else was around. They didn't see the lone horseman watching from a distant hillside. He was half Mescalera and half white and one of the men the rustlers had killed was his best friend. When he turned his horse's head toward the trail of the killers, a payoff lay just ahead.

The rogue ranch was stealing their neighbors blind and laying it to the settlers. A range war was brewing. Then a Bonnett showed up looking for missing kinfolks and signs pointed to the rogue ranch.

Blamed for a murder he didn't commit, Bill Bonnett escapes from a lynching and flees to the west. There he encounters more problems as his accusers wind up in the same town. Eventually he kills the man that did the murder he was accused of.

The two young men had just turned twenty and already had a thriving horse business started. Then they were attacked and brutally beaten by a cattle baron who was determined to build an empire and it required removing all the small ranchers. The young men he had attacked and left for dead didn’t die. One was a Bonnett and the other was a Bailey. Their family came from feuding stock and it wasn’t long until they started showing up. It was Frank Bonnett that arrived first. And he came just ahead of a mad and jealous rancher from across the Idaho line who had killing on his mind. But Frank was one of those Bonnetts from Mulberry Ridge back in North Carolina. He had cut his teeth on guns and trouble just naturally rode the trails with him. He wasn’t about to let those riders from Idaho stand in the way of settling the family business in the small town of Baxter.

A call for help sent Max Bonnett riding south toward Trinidad. Behind him rode the Delmore gang, bent on vengeance for Max had killed Clete Delmore’s brother. Awaiting him was a vicious rancher bent on either marrying or killing his friend that had called for help. And to add to his troubles, the rancher had hired the Moffit gang out of New Mexico to kill him. But Max was rough and he had seen troubles before.