Three Civil War deserters, dispossessed of all virtue and living on the fringe of humanity, kidnap a young boy with the sole purpose of conscripting him into their degenerate band of misfits. Tethered about the neck with a rawhide lace and made to bid the commands of General Ike Smith, the boy's survival depends upon his ability to adapt to their malevolent ways a lesson he learns quickly. He abandons the teachings of his clergyman father, and embraces the mindless violence to which he is exposed. For all he finds distasteful in the three men he has grown to despise, he also finds he has an unexplained affinity for the power that resides in the violence that defines them. The boy's life, cast into darkness and evil, promises no chance for salvation. His single opportunity for redemption may well lie with an old Indian horse trainer and a small band of "unbroke" horses.