It's 1854. In the East, tension between North and South pulled the country apart, with a weak President helpless to stop it and Secretary of War Jefferson Davis following his own agenda. But in the West, a different threat arose. A new generation of Apache leaders were taking over, who would no longer talk peace with the White Eyes. Instead they would fight with the courage, daring, and brilliance that was the Apache pride. First Lieutenant Nathanial Barrington was already a battle-scarred veteran of the Apache Wars. But nothing in his passion-driven life as a man and fighting life as a soldier prepared him for the love that flamed in the shadow of the gathering storm-or for the violence sweeping over the Southwest in the greatest test the U.S. Army ever faced and the hardest choice Barrington ever had to make.