The year 1858 dawns blood red in the untamed Southwest, even as in the East the country moves towards civil war. Leadership of the most warlike Apache tribe has passed to the great warrior chief Cochise, who burns to avenge the poisoning of an Indian child. Meanwhile, the U.S. Army is out to end Apache power with terror instead of treaties.As these two great fighting forces circle for the kill on a map stained by massacre and ambush, former dragoon officer Nathanial Barrington finds no escape from the clash of cultures he sought to flee. He is drawn west again to be tempted by a love as forbidden as it is irresistible and to be torn between the military that formed him as a fighting man and the hold the Apaches have on his heart and soul. Originally published under the pen name Frank Burleson