The Ravenwood Trade

the long version

Captured by Union forces in the battle of Peachtree Creek, Confederate Chaplain Pat Ravenwood is incarcerated in Clonnerville Prisoner-of-War Camp north of Atlanta. In the squalor of this hell-hole, his faith is shattered by the cruelty of a sadistic Union Sergeant named Buck Hagan. Consumed with hatred, Pat vows to kill Hagan. Upon his release from the prison camp at the end of the war, Pat trades his Bible for a gun and becomes the town marshal in his home town, Pine Creek, Georgia. Later, due to an extraordinary set of circumstances, Pat is named a Deputy U.S. Marshal. In the chaotic aftermath of the fall of the Confederacy, three killers are terrorizing communities in central Georgia. Pat and two other marshals are ordered to bring the killers to justice. When two of the killers are apprehended, Pat's two associates are assigned to other duties, leaving Pat to track down the leader of the gang alone. As he doggedly follows one lead after another, it becomes evident that the man he is pursuing is none other than Buck Hagan, the man he has threatened to kill. The search for the elusive Hagan is time-consuming and hampered by many dead-end leads. Finally, one lead pays off, and Pat comers Hagan in a farm house near the little town of Abbeville, Georgia. With both barrels of his sawed-off shotgun cocked, Pat enters the house and comes face-to-face with Hagan, only to discover that there is one more trade to be made.