Tom's Crossing

In Utah County in October 1982, Kalin March acts on a promise to his dying friend Tom Gatestone: if Navidad and Mouse are ever put in Old Porch's slaughter Paddock B, Kalin will free them and take them to Tom's Crossing in the Katanogos mountains. After Tom's death, Kalin removes the horses from the paddock and enters Isatch Canyon, where Tom appears to him as a ghost. Landry Gatestone, Tom's sister, separately follows Kalin and later joins him on her stallion Jojo. The group crosses increasingly dangerous screes, rockfalls, and high mountain terrain while Allison March, Sondra Gatestone, law enforcement, and the Porch family search for them.

Old Porch is falsely accusing Kalin of murdering his youngest son, Russel, while Old Porch and several people around him are concealing the circumstances of Russel's actual death. At the same time, Old Porch is trying to profit from the proposed Four Summits development. Egan Porch shoots Landry from the far side of the mountain, and Kalin sees her disappear in an avalanche without knowing whether she survived. At Pillars Meadow, Old Porch arrives with his sons and associates and helicopter pilot Kevin Moffet. Old Porch kills Moffet and falsely blames Kalin. After Old Porch threatens Navidad, Kalin fires the six rounds in the Colt Peacemaker, wounding Old Porch and killing Egan, Kelly, Sean, Billings, and Shelly. Kelly and Shelly also fatally shoot Francis and Woolsey, and Billings seriously wounds Kalin. Hatch refuses to join the attack, tries to arrest Kalin, and begins challenging Old Porch's account before Old Porch shoots him in the back. Kalin nevertheless releases Navidad and Mouse through the Crossing's gateposts, restrains Old Porch alive, and passes through the gateposts with Tom, who then disappears.

Landry survives Egan's bullet and the fall, finds Jojo, reaches Pillars Meadow, and discovers Kalin near death. She secures him to Jojo and rides him through the mountains to the hospital, where Kalin survives emergency surgery and a prolonged period of unconsciousness. Investigators later establish that Russel died in Egan's dining room, contradicting the Porch family's story, and Kalin is cleared of charges concerning Russel and Ranger Bren Kelson. Old Porch's trials for the deaths of Russel and Hatch both end in hung juries, but his development financing collapses. Sondra Gatestone and the owner of Cassidy Ski Resort purchase more than forty thousand acres on the eastern side of the Katanogos massif and establish Phains Haven as a protected refuge for wild and retired horses; Sondra and Allison work there for the rest of their lives.

Kalin and Landry marry, raise children, and spend much of their lives at Phains Haven. Kalin remains troubled by the killings and loses his former ease with horses, which continue to fear him; Navidad and Mouse are never found again. Kalin dies shortly before turning eighty, and Landry dies four years later. Landry's narration continues after her death and finally reveals that she still carries the fully loaded Peacemaker, cannot empty any of its six chambers, and refuses to surrender it.