In a Dixie small-town, the late Sheriff was quite content to preside over a truly segregated community. There the rich brothers, Harlan and Mason Davis, are lords. His successor, World War II veteran Frank Richards, has a more modern view on justice and equality, which doesn't help his social acceptance anywhere. He also has doubts about the mysterious masked 'peg-leg' to whom all murders where ascribed. Harlan is shot after an African-American boy threatens him with a gun to stop his old-fashioned 'liberalities'. Frank and the prosecutor's retired dad, agree to act as defense council, investigate, cued by the boy's Caucasian playmate, Luke Winter, and turn both case and town around.—KGF Vissers