43-year-old Blight County, Idaho, Sheriff Bo Tully finds three young men, apparently farm laborers, lying by a huckleberry patch, each shot in the back of the head. Tully has his hands full with the rare triple murder as well as the disappearance of rancher Orville Poulson, whose so-called caretaker, Ray Crockett, has entrenched himself on Poulson's property.