Set in the South in the waning years of the Civil War, this is the dramatic story of a remarkable heroine, Lifee, and her husband, Mor. When Emancipation finally comes to Texas, Mor, Lifee, and their family set out in search of hope and a piece of land they can work and call their own. Miraculously, they manage not only to survive, but to succeed - their crops grow, their children thrive, they educate themselves and others.

But the South during Reconstruction is not a place that takes kindly to the achievements of former slaves, and as lynchings and injustice become a plague across the region, time and again they must make the anguished decision to leave their land in search of a safer place.