Dakota Territory, 1867. The O'Driscoll brothers have survived a Sioux massacre, but younger brother Michael is gravely wounded. The deserters are fleeing north with Tom's lover, Sara, when they come upon a sheltering rock by a stream down off the Bozeman Trail. If there is game here, they may survive the winter.

"Wanted" posters appear everywhere along the trail. The likenesses do not resemble the brothers, but their uniforms give them away. Enter any town, and they will have to shoot their way out. The rock and the river become their safe place, and when spring comes, their paradise. But the world seeks its way to them, and even in paradise human nature makes its own trouble. In this follow-up to his acclaimed novel The Wolves of Eden, Kevin McCarthy tells a story of three very human characters battling to survive in a vast, beautiful, and unforgiving landscape.