Thirty-five years ago, Abel Truman was on the wrong side in the Battle of the Wilderness, a bloody clash in the American Civil War. On Washington State's rugged coast, in his driftwood shack, he'd waited for the scars to heal. Now old and ailing, Abel must make one final journey over the snowbound Olympic Mountains. But he sets out, followed by two men, darkly tenacious in their pursuit ... Hypatia is a slave whose freedom comes at a terrible price. She walks unwittingly into the hellish heart of the Wilderness. Ellen is a white woman, married to a black man in dangerous and unforgiving times. And Jane, a young Chinese girl, cruelly orphaned, clings to life ... eventually, Abel's tortured path will lead to each one of them ...