When the transcontinental railroad is finished in 1869, drifter Sam Storm finds himself banned from Salt Lake City high society and the girl he loves. But a loan from a prostitute to launch a daring business scheme involving firewater, stolen horses and a dangerous journey to the wild country of western Canada makes Sam a rich man. When he returns to Salt Lake, however, Sam finds he can't forget Leather Belly, a Blackfoot woman who confronted a charging grizzly to save his life. Nor can he forget a smallpox-ravaged Shoshone village on the Snake River, where unknown villains dragged women and children from their graves, stripping and scalping the bodies.
After a surprise murder and an unexpected sickness, the pieces begin to fall together as Sam uncovers a hideous business scheme, indirectly involving the woman he loves and an old family enemy by the name of Dick Boggs, who had come west from Missouri to the Montana gold fields. When young Storm sets out on the trail of the treacherous old man, he finds he has taken on more than he bargained for. An unexpected turn of events leads to a surprise ending for this sizzling historical novel. This is the third volume in the fast-moving Storm Testament series, the stirring saga of the Storm family as recorded in Dan Storm's lost journals.