Brigham Bybee has withdrawn from the routine practice of law and purchased Piute Villa, a motel in Kanab, Utah with a large, concrete tepee in the middle of the grounds. He wants to be near the beautiful Zolene Swapp. Still, when the state approaches him to prosecute the notorious polygamist, T. Rampton Crowe, Brig accepts. When a runaway "plural wife" of Crowe's, Mercy, is beaten, bloody, and terrified and tells a story of murder and mutilation within the colony from which she fled, Bybee decides to go after Crowe for murder. As Mercy begins to insinuate herself into his life, Brig finds Zolene slipping away and discovers just how far-reaching the hand of power can be, and how deadly