"Leaving their Pennsylvania home to forge a new life in the untamed Oregon Territory of 1845, the Colter family is ambushed by a kill crazy gang of Indians on the Oregon Trail. Fifteen-year-old Tim Colter manages to escape and hide--only to return and find his parents butchered, his sisters Nancy and Margaret missing. Forced to fight for his life, the young Colter embarks on a perilous journey across a lawless wilderness, hoping to save his sisters...

Twenty-two years have passed since Tim Colter and his family were ambushed on the Oregon Trail, forcing the young boy to find an unlikely ally in one-eyed mountain man Jed Reno. Now a widowed deputy U.S. marshal and Civil War veteran, Colter is finally ready to remarry and settle down--until a dangerous new assignment becomes a life-or-death struggle for the soul of a town and the heart of its people . . . The Union Pacific Railroad is laying down...