Verity, running away from betrayal, travels west in 1778 with George Rogers Clark and his small army. Trey, Clark's guide, was content with the virgin wilderness and his freedom until he saw Verity fighting with a goat, of all things, on a muddy hillside. Can she learn to trust again? Can he come to grips with a need to be footloose? They find hostile Indains, all the dangers of river travel, and each other while heading toward the conflict at Kaskaskia, in the Illinois country.