"Two stories told as one...

1913

After returning from war in the Philippines, haunted veteran, Jim Bishop, takes a job with a burgeoning motion picture company which is filming a movie based on a western famous gunfight. Also on hand is legendary author, Ambrose Bierce, who is no stranger to the residual effects of war and combat. Bierce claims that he is on his way to see Pancho Villa and the Mexican Revolution, but he decides to stay with Jim on the movie set for a time. As the filming proceeds, Jim encounters some strange incidents that make him suspect that everything is not as it should be in this world of motion picture make-believe. As things progress further, he begins to wonder what really happened in Contention City those thirty-three years ago ...

1880

Back in the waning days of the Old West in the actual Contention City, Sheriff Lon Dayton is contacted by the notorious Dutch Bascom regarding the territorial governor's proclamation of amnesty for Bascom and his gang of brutal outlaws. Dayton has no choice but to walk the tightrope balancing the alleged intentions of the outlaws against the promises of the unscrupulous politicians and railroad men who claim to be in favor of the outlaw's surrender. But are they really?

These two stories, set thirty-three years apart, continue in alternating fashion, involving shootouts, deceptions, and betrayals, until finally coalescing into a profusion of kidnapping, violence, and murder as the secret of what really happened in Contention City finally emerges along with a new appetite for vengeance.

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