A champion barrel racer disappears from her trailer on the eve of the Black Hills Roundup. Two hundred miles away, female remains are discovered at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Doug and Jill Fletcher, assigned to investigate the crime at the national monument, quickly determine that the remains are the missing rodeo champion. Thrust into the unfamiliar world of calf ropers, bull riders, and barrel racers, they team up with the Belle Fourche police to investigate the murder.

A trucker reports seeing a ghost driving the victim's pickup across Montana the night of the murder. Other witnesses report seeing a rodeo clown near her trailer. Fletchers locate the victim's stolen pickup and horse trailer, but not her horse. The evidence seems to point to horse theft as the motive, but the complicated reports of ghosts and rodeo clowns leaves them feeling that there's more to the crime than a simple horse theft.