As the railroad builders advance unstoppably through the Arizona desert on their way to the sea, Jill arrives in the small town of Flagstone with the intention of starting a new life.

While the Civil War rages on between the Union and the Confederacy, three men – a quiet loner, a ruthless hitman, and a Mexican bandit – comb the American Southwest in search of a strongbox containing $200,000 in stolen gold.

A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.