Years ago, Ethan testified against a person. Now that person is the new town's preacher who is a paroled murderer, claiming to have seen the light. Everyone in town is giving him a second chance, except for Ethan.
Joseph's tomboy friend, Frankie, returns to Paradise, now sophisticatedly attired and married to a controlling, offensive judge who has the control to transfer Ethan to Texas on a murder warrant.
Ethan is offered a very well paying job but at the same time very dangerous. To deliver the opium that miners use to keep some Chinese workers more or less enslaved.
A symbolic drama centering on two strangers in Paradise: a black-clad equestrian with two grim appointments to keep before the New Year, and a simple youth left in the forest to fend for himself.
Ethan has to find out who is robbing the graves in the local cemetery; while Amelia takes care of the children whom a beautiful girl she does not know is tutoring. The law also wants her.
A woman fights an implacable battle against the railroad she blames for the loss of her husband, son, and farm, not considering the cost to her and her surviving daughter.