During the last century, strange tales have drifted from the Sierra Madre Mountains; rumors of battles, murders, robberies, and kidnappings between Mexicans and a mysterious, wild people. Recovering from double amputations, US Marine Nick Diaz returns from Afghanistan seeking healing at his family's border ranch in Cochise County, Arizona. He finds the ranch renamed and declared a new nation by one cousin; another cousin is missing; the family's cattle herd has been sold off; and smugglers roam the hills. As Nick attempts to adjust to his own physical challenges and to changes on the ranch, he discovers a people who may need more help than he does.

In Legacy of the Blue Mountains, author Lynn Galvin asks: What might happen to a group of Apache children, born in present times, yet living as if in the past and marooned in the Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico when their last renegade adult dies? As they attempt to reach their nearest, last known family members, they embark on a journey to a place none of them has ever seen or visited before. Will they be able to remain undetected while following a memorized path laid out in previous centuries that will lead them into the modern world? As the last remaining Apache children confront the challenges of survival in unfamiliar lands, will they endure long enough to reunite with their remaining relatives?