The Transgressors

Deputy sheriff Tom Lord knows by now that far-west Texas is the place he'll always call home. He's spent too much time in the region's small towns to adapt to another place. And that's all right with him. What's not all right is being a deputy sheriff, where if it weren't for family misfortune, he might have been a doctor instead.

Lord's got one ace-in-the-hole -- the land deed that makes him the biggest landowner in the county, just as the oil companies have started to move in.

When Tom'...