Following on from A Return to the Alamo, Thomas Collins finds himself in Mexico with a detachment of Texas Rangers. Their mission is to escort the infamous dictator, Lopez de Santa Anna and his delectable daughter Ana de Luna inland from Vera Cruz, so that he can regain power and end the war with America. Collins soon realises that far from assisting him, his men may well intend to slaughter Santa Anna in revenge for the Alamo siege a decade earlier. He is also accompanied by a young Robert E. Lee and the mysterious Francis Tylee, who in addition to possessing Samuel Colt's latest revolving repeating rifle appears to have his own murderous agenda. After leaving the coast, Collins and his disparate band fend off an attack by Mexican Cavalry, unintentionally destroy the cathedral in Xalapa whilst fighting the Irish Saint Patrick's Brigade and end up enduring a gruelling encounter at the prison fortress of Perote in the Mexican highlands.