Bounty hunters have ambushed mountain man Joe Moss and his wife, Fiona, and aim to take them back to Virginia City to face the gallows. The powerful Peabody family, which owns a mine on the Comstock Lode, blames Fiona for murdering one of their clan.
 
Joe’s wife is no murderer, but Moss is no stranger to killing his enemies—and taking their scalps as trophies. The Peabodys have nearly destroyed his wife and daughter with their unjustified vendetta. And now, as merciless gunmen drag them across a barren desert full of hostile Paiutes, Moss is going to show his captors why he’s known as Mankiller.