Historians have devoted much time and effort investigating Henry Plummer, the sheriff of Bannack, Montana, who was hanged by vigilantes on a bitter, cold January night in 1864. Henry's life tells the tale of a lawless West and the untamed, violent mining towns of the 1800s where shootouts and duals rule and life is worth only a handful of gold. Henry, a well-educated and handsome man, soft-spoken and refined, appears dedicated to the law but is capable of instantly shooting a man dead. When Henry Plummer becomes sheriff in Bannack in 1863, he has killed five men in self-defense. Hunger for gold dust brings every manner of men and with them come more robberies and murders. Rumors and suspicion become rampant, leaving no one untouched, including Henry Plummer, a man swept along by the tides of his time.