First sentence
Gawain Harper stood in the deep mud of the southerly road, listening...
Description
"On a balmy spring day in 1865 Gawain Harper approaches the town of Cumberland, Mississippi, where three years earlier he had boarded a train carrying the latest enlistees in the Mississippi Infantry. Unmoved by the Cause that motivated so many others, Gawain had joined up only when Morgan Rhea's father told him that he would never wed his beloved Morgan unless he did his part in the war effort.". "Now, upon his safe arrival home, Gawain discovers postwar life is far from what he expected. Morgan has indeed waited for him, but before they can marry there are scores to be settled. For in Cumberland, yet another battle is being waged, and the enemy is not the occupying Federal troops but the town's own "King" Solomon Gault, a deranged, manipulative man on a mission to restore his own brand of justice to a community turned upside down. As Gawain, with unexpected support from a diverse group of men, struggles to find a way to avenge the Rhea family's honor, he is drawn into an inexorable showdown with Gault that once again pits South against North, and dignity against defeat."--BOOK JACKET.