Gavin McCord and his brawling cowboys came to Missouri with a problem: 3,500 longhorns and not one buyer. That's where Gladstone Pitkin came in. A man with money and a dream of ranching in New Mexico, Pitkin bought McCord's cattle and hired his Texans for a trail drive from Independence to Santa Fe. But with an ill-fated gambler on the drive, the courageous, hardened riders weren't just a thousand brutal miles from Santa Fe-they were heading into a death trap.