Broken Heartland

Sleepy Benteen County, Kansas, turns frantic on election day. The radical religious right is out to unseat Sheriff English, better known as Englishman, after his deputy accidentally rammed into a school bus carrying the Benteen County teen choir.

Englishman's brother, Mad Dog, a born-again Cheyenne, rushes back from a quest in the Black Hills with a premonition that the sheriff is in serious danger. The sheriff's daughters, too, wake with similar fears and cut their college classes to hurry home.

Then, a student smuggles a gun into the school and begins shooting and taking hostages. And Englishman still needs to clear up one little thing about his deputy's accident: Benteen County doesn't have a teen choir.

It's enough to make a sheriff wonder why he wants to serve another term.