Phillips shows the metamorphosis of a frontier town that becomes a lightning rod for sin, corruption, and murder. He also brings to life actual crimes that befell Kansas in the 1870s and 1880s, carried out by a strange clan who popularly became known as The Bloody Benders. Cottonwood, Kansas in 1872 is a one-horse speck on the map until a wealthy Chicago developer tries to turn it into a boomtown.
