Mexico City in the autumn of 1835 is a lawless place, teeming with bandits and beggars. But an urgent letter from a desperate friend draws Benjamin January and his new bride Rose from New Orleans to this newly free province. Here they pray they'll find Hannibal Sefton alive--and not hanging from the end of a rope. Sefton stands accused of murdering the only son of prominent landowner Don Prospero de Castell