Mac McPherson shivers beside the open grave, taking notes for a newspaper story for which he has been promised twenty-five cents. When he files his piece, the editor gives him only two dimes, but Mac is not too proud to take it. Only fourteen years old, he has his mother to think of and his own hungry belly to feed. One night, town sheriff Frank Drinkwalter gives Mac a better offer: an apprenticeship in riding and shooting that may one day lead to a deputy’s star. The sheriff will need Mac’s help sooner than either of them realizes. The devil lies behind the eyes of blacksmith Jack Galt, whom Drinkwalter suspects of savagely murdering a series of innocent women. But without proof, there is nothing Drinkwalter can do but watch and wait. When the blacksmith threatens the woman he loves, Drinkwalter has no choice but to call on Mac. In Montana, a boy must grow up fast if he wants to wear a deputy’s star.