Summary
A weather-beaten gospel-sharpshooter, Jim Houston, rides into the dust-choked purgatory of Barren Gulch promising redemption through both scripture and six-gun. His pulpit is a saloon doorway, his choir the clink of spurs. Sheriff “Birdshot” Bivens—half lawman, half celestial referee—blesses the experiment, yet the parson’s own hearthstone crumbles: Mary, porcelain-fragile and starved for metropolitan sin, succumbs to the velvet corruption of Dr. Hardy, a card-dealing Faust who keeps absinthe in his medical bag and perdition behind his cufflinks. Their elopement detonates Houston’s faith; he flees civilisation’s glare for a cedar-scented hermitage where only his fevered toddler hears the broken psalms. Months later, when the child teeters on the lip of the grave, a mountain tempest delivers Mary—ragged, repentant, unknowing—back to the cabin threshold. Hardy, summoned by desperation, arrives as both healer and hostage to Houston’s cocked Colt. In the candle’s guttering halo Mary chooses neither man but the trembling life between them; the gun lowers, grace supplants vengeance, and the gambler walks into the night unpunished while the family remains, fractured yet still breathing.
Synopsis
Jim Houston, the "Shootin' Iron" Parson, comes to Barren Gulch to reform the morals of the frontier community. He receives the support of "Birdshot" Bivens, the sheriff of the county. Jim's wife, Mary, however, is a weak character. She falls a prey to the seduction of Dr. Hardy, the village gambler and saloon keeper, and elopes with him. Jim Houston, forsaking the ministry, goes to the mountains and cares for his child in a log cabin home. Later the child falls very ill. Mary, in a mountain storm, comes unwittingly to their door. Dr. Hardy is sent for as the only physician in the district. He ministers to the child and confronts Houston, who intends to kill him. Mary is asked to make her choice between Houston and Dr. Hardy. She points towards the child and goes to its bedside. Houston forgives his wife and instead of killing Hardy permits him to go unharmed.
