An extraordinary saga of the trail-blazing cowboys who made their fortune driving cattle from Texas to the great frontier. Hard-riding Texans were braving mountains, desert and Indian war-- for the promise of a golden land called California...

Missouri was closed to Texas cattle. Santa Fe was closed by murder. Now, they had one choice: cross desert mountains and hostile Indian land-- to a place called California...The only riches Texans had left after the Civil War were five million maverick longhorns and the brains, brawn, and boldness to drive them north to where the money was.

For the ranchers riding with Rand Hayes, things had gone from bad to worse. The Santa Fe man who'd contracted five thousand head of cattle was dead-- murdered by renegades. Now the Texans had a herd of longhorns and only one choice: cross two mountain ranges and the Mojave Desert to the gold-fevered market at Los Angeles. A trail blazed by ancient Spaniards, this was a route that would lead through a brutal, wondrous land, where a hostile Ute nation was only one danger the cattle drive faced, and California was a shooting war away...