Jake Bershinsky's mother moves to an isolated Forest Service station where he befriends Henry Riley, a local Indian boy. When his mother is called away for weeks at a time on fire suppression duties, he stays with Henry's family, becoming a member of the tribe. It is a idyllic life until the boys are torn apart. Jake joins the Army to get away and forget the painful memory. Years later, when the wound feels healed, he retires from the Army and returns to his boyhood home as a Law Enforcement Officer for the US Forest Service. Life is good until a body turns up in the White Tail River at Beaver Creek Campground. Within days a second body is discovered. Searching for the murderer(s) re-opens the wound and propels him on a collision course with his past as he works to head off a modern Indian uprising.