During the 1860s, the Oregon and Santa Fe westward out of Independence Missouri were busy travel corridors providing seasonal business for wagon master, Clifford Stokes and his scout, Scott Buchanan. The wagon journey begins along the south fork of the Platte River where potential danger threatens from two unknown groups flanking the wagons while remaining hidden from view. One group is a Kiowa raiding party, the others are fleeing bank robbers in need of provisions. A traveling daughter bound for San Francisco becomes attracted to two men, a suave newspaper man where she is going, and a growing interest in the wagon scout in his element on the frontier. When tragedy strikes, a young worker on the wagon train studying for the ministry answers those difficult questions, why God uses life over death as His tool because of human rebellion. Woven within the novel are different human personalities including social prejudices, a powerful magnet as the story unfolds.
