Outlawry. Fire. Murder. An arsonist is on the loose in Saddler County, Texas, burning down ranch houses with the families still asleep in their beds-including children. When the local mercantile is set on fire and his town threatened, it's the last straw for Sheriff Dell Hoffman, who sets out on an all-out manhunt to run down the perpetrator. He's joined in the pursuit by young Rose Parsons, a bounty hunter with the temper of an angry badger and the trigger finger to match. She has her own reasons for tracking down the man she's come to call the Fire Starter. Her mother was one of his victims, and Rose has vowed to take his head in for the bounty if it's the last thing she ever does. Together, they set out on a high- stakes, hellbent-for-leather chase across the Staked Plains of the vast Texas Panhandle. But no matter how hard they ride, neither Del nor Rose are able to run the rampaging psychopath to ground.

Desperate to put an end to this fiery trail of destruction and murder, they recruit a posse of the toughest hombres around to lend a hand. It's a rough and rowdy outfit, to be sure, including an Apache tracker, two outlaws, and a few of the toughest lawmen this side of the Red River, but they put their differences aside for the common good. On the vast plains of Texas, though, lighting can strike without warning. Can they run this outlaw to ground before he kills again? Or will he elude them once again and burn down everything they know and love before they can stop him?