A thrill-seeking, deceitful, devious woman who wields her beauty as a weapon arrives in the isolated Mojave Desert town of Smoke Tree on a sweltering hot day in July of 1974 with her overmatched boyfriend. A Black family fleeing the wrath of the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi arrives at the same time. Their confluence leads to a murder and a kidnapping. Captain Carlos Caballo of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, known as "Horse" throughout the Lower Colorado River Basin, must sort through the pieces to protect his town.