“I was to make myself a killer.”

In 1865, a man calling himself Septimus Whitehall slashed, shot, and burned his way from New York to California in a frenzy of violence. This is his own story, told in his own words.

Seven names were on the doctor’s list. Seven men and women scattered all over the United States and its western territories. Seven souls judged guilty by a mysterious man with no past apart from the loss for which his enemies are blamed. The War Between the States is over, but Septimus Whitehall intends to wage a bloody war of his own and he is willing to cut down almost anyone who stands in his way. From New York City and Boston on the cusp of the Gilded Age to the war-ravaged ruins of Alabama and Arkansas, through the mythic American West and beyond, Whitehall will practice his violent vocation until everyone on that list meets the Sawbones.