Wealthy young Doctor Tobias Griffin, traveling west to meet his family, disappears near the Osage Trace in southern Kansas. And he's not the only one… Jake Lazarus, cowboy, expert tracker, Pennington agent and solver of more mysteries than you can shake a stick at, gets his most difficult assignment yet: track down the missing Doctor Griffin for his worried family back East. But Jake soon finds himself involved in more than he'd bargains for: his partner Lysander Keane kits them out as traveling snake-oil salesmen traveling in the gaudiest wagon under the sky. Gunslingers, bushwhackers, gamblers and jayhawkers aside, it's looking more and more like the most dangerous thing Jake Lazarus has ever run across in all his born days just might be a woman with green eyes and beautiful red curls…