Darkwater is a dusty ol' town in an unspecified country, post-virus-related apocalypse. The town is surrounded by a wall with a locked and guarded gatehouse whichs admits no strangers - only traders, if they are screened as virus-free. Citizens of the town are periodically cast out into the barren red dust beyond the gates if they show signs of illness, viral or not. It is said that the distant, fabled city is anarchic, and full of mutants.
Granger is the man in charge. He dominates the sheriff, has a policy where women are seen but not heard, and he rotates his disturbingly young concubines out once they get too old for him. His latest is our protagonist, Chelsea: 16, orphaned and too curious for her own good. Granger feeds the townspeople positive disinformation to keep them in line, but the reality is that the water is foul, the crops are failing, and there are stirrings of unrest.
The apple cart is upset upon the arrival of a stranger who is admitted through the gates, ostensibly wanting to trade. But the whispers begin almost immediately. Not only is the stranger on horseback (Darkwater's animals began to be born deformed until no more were born at all), but, shockingly, she is female. Rumours swirl: it's a former resident, back from the dead. What could she want?
Chelsea is immediately fascinated by the stranger, who is everything a woman should not be: clad in pants, armed, drinking in the hotel, and enjoying freedoms as if she were a man. The stranger has an agenda, of course, and Chelsea is determined to find out what it is.
The tale is told through Chelsea's investigations, her history and friendships, and her twisted relationship with Granger. The town is as tumbleweed-strewn as a western could be – there's even a fabulously dramatic showdown in the main street where the reader can practically hear the rattlesnakes and the whistles of bullets. But this is post-apocalypse, not the 1800s, with an element of speculative fiction as our world burns and women's rights are eroded.
