A jaded soldier is shot and falls next to Custer. He wakens in a world where life and death are indistinguishable and embarks with a mongrel whore--who becomes any woman he wants-- for answers.

SYNOPSIS:

The Soldier, a member of the 7th Calvary, is riding his horse at a fast gallop across the Badlands. He turns and fires his Colt 45 at a Lakota Sioux riding bareback. The Sioux warrior fires his Winchester. Soldier's horse falls. Soldier is thrown onto the grassy plains. Struggling to remain conscious, he scrambles to find his gun and sees it lying under a rock just as he passes out. When he wakes, he's in an unknown desert. He doesn't know how he got there. He sees a gun nearby. It doesn't look like any gun he's ever seen before. He reaches out for it and it slides into his hand. When suddenly threatened by silent horsemen, he fires and the gun burns big round holes through them. Silently. A strange horse appears. Its eyes rotate in their sockets like a chameleon. He picks up the reins and climbs into the saddle. The saddle moves under him to fit him perfectly. The horse leads him deeper into the dream.

He comes to a town with no name where no one ages. He finds himself in an upstairs room with one of the whores. Her name is Number One and he discovers she's a mongrel Amaphore, half-human, half-something else, who has the ability to change shape and color to become any woman he has ever known or can dream up. After a night of unforgettable love making, he's repulsed to discover the next morning that her wild head of hair runs down the center of her back and stops at a tuft just above her ass. But he loves her just the same because she showed him he could love, something he thought he could never do. And that he could be loved, something he thought he was unworthy of because of all of the killings he's done of men, women, and children for his country.

Downstairs, he plays a game of cards. A man in black, sitting in shadows calls him a cheat and he finds himself standing in the center of the dusty street facing the man down. They both have Everlastings. The Soldier is faster. Turns out, it was the town's sheriff he killed. The town's people cheer him on. Now he's the new sheriff in town. But he doesn't want the job. He only wants to crawl out of the nightmare.

He soon discovers the town and its people have no answers to his questions and are unaffected by love or hate and he begins to wonder if he's dead or alive. He thinks the mystery lies in dying and waits for the next drifter with an Everlasting to outdraw him.

When that Challenger shows up-- as he learns they inevitably will-- he wonders if he's ready to die. Or to fight to live in the dream and to lie in the arms of Number One forever. He chooses to live by outdrawing and killing the man. That choice also means ditching the town and its loveless people. He asks Number One if she wants to join him. She does and they embark on an adventure beyond the town in a land where no one ever returns from, a land where he discovers the true secret behind his new life.