Elizabeth Carter had taken up where her son had left off; she had formed her own gang of bank robbers and killers. And along with her two stepsons, Randall and Micah Kershaw, she has brought down a reign of terror from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to Brownsville, Texas. And at every bank robbery or every murder, she left this message: Tell Hightower his days are numbered! It has been known for a long time that Elizabeth and her gang of cutthroats have been hiding out in the most inaccessible part of the bayou, which was a section that covered both the southwest section of Louisiana and the southeast section of Texas. She had sworn to rain hell down on anyone who had anything to do with the hanging of her son, especially Edward Hightower. She had sworn to wipe out his entire family and to hang him with the same rope that hung her son. By threatening the life of a federal judge and his family, she had inadvertently provided Hightowers family with security because Judge Tatum ordered a troop of cavalry to erect a post on the Hightower property, not only to protect his family but to also ensure that the Indians who had moved on to a small reservation just south of the ranch were not harassed or bothered in any way. General Whitehead had pulled some strings in the newly formed federal government and had gotten Hightower the authority he needed to go after Elizabeth Carter and her gang by having Hightower issued a deputy United States marshalls badge. He had been issued these orders: Bring in Elizabeth Carter and her gangdead or alive!