Includes bibliographical references (pages 259-260).

"It is 1862. With his older brothers fighting in the war, Wyatt Earp - at fourteen - is left to manage the family's Iowa farm under his father's iron rule. These years of labor inculcate into him an ambition to seek his fortunes by his wits rather than the sweat of his back. The open territory to the west, he knows, offers that opportunity. When his family treks to California he makes the passing acquaintance of a beguiling Mexican girl, whose philosophy of success and failure will haunt Wyatt for years to come. It is the prophecy of the "adobe moon," a rusty-hued orb that reminds a man: If you do not achieve your dreams, you must settle for what you have. Though rejecting this creed, Wyatt feels the notion dog him like a ghost. After stints as coach driver, freight-hauler, and grader for the railroad, Wyatt takes his first "respectable" job as constable in a small Missouri town. There he meets the woman who teaches him the value of settling down with family. When she dies with child, Wyatt sinks into a depression where the lines of ethics blur. Wanted by the law he loses himself in the waterfront slums of Peoria working in brothels. Fed up with his self-made squalor, he returns to the West for a second chance at a proper life. In a Kansas cattle town he comes face to face with his salvation ... and his destiny as a lawman with his own iron rule"--