Orphan Zachery Budd began his life in the workhouses and poorhouses of Eighteenth-Century London. From there, he graduated to earn a living as a bare-knuckled prizefighter in the city's back streets.

In 1865, on hearing tales of America from seafarers, he sailed from Southampton, England, to California in favour of the sailing vessel SV Seagull, arriving at the port town of Stockton.

To pay his way and to bide his time while waiting to travel by stagecoach to Phoenix, Arizona, Zach took on a job at a local whorehouse that went by the name of The Purring Pussy.

Follow Zach during his danger-ridden coach journey, his dealings with outlaws, Indians, and con men. And his appointment as marshal of the gold mining township of Wickenburg, where wrongdoers suffered the indignity of cutting out their time while shackled in the town square, to the Prison Tree.

The young man, a recent inductee into adulthood, will confront instances of greed, cruelty, cold-blooded murders, and betrayal while wearing the badge of the sole law officer of the region.