It is 2080 in Terlingua, Texas, when fifteen-year-old twin brothers Christian and Vallie McCade sneak into their father's laboratory and use his time machine to embark on what they believe will be a short trip back to the Old West. However, the trip turns out to be anything but when the time machine is damaged, and the boys are left stranded. Christian, the older of the two by one hour, is prone to violent outbursts and sociopathic behavior. He blames his brother, Vallie, for their dilemma and beats him unconscious. Vallie awakens several hours later to find Christian gone and his world turned upside down. With only an antique Colt .45 and his father's compass in hand, Vallie sets out to find his way in a period two hundred years before his own, where saloons and cathouses are a man's choice of entertainment-horses, wagons, and coal-burning trains are the only means of transportation-and cowboys, bounty hunters, and sheriff's rule the land. But as Vallie is about to discover, life can be full of surprises, and sometimes our destiny has a plan of its own.