When Ernest Pratt's longtime friend, Libbie Custer—the wife of Major General George Armstrong Custer—seeks the one-time journalist's influence in restoring her husband's command. Pratt instead discovers it's more crucial to use Nicodemus Legend's persona to thwart Custer's assassination.

Legend winds up in the middle of a feud between competing paleontologists who think they've made the find of the century in Sheridan—the only problem is the dinosaur bones may be buried directly under Pratt's favorite watering hole, the Silver King. So Legend faces not only the frenzy of the fossil diggers, but the conflict between Creationists and Darwinians.