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.