John Stuart Tapscott, after service to the Confederacy and his home state of Virginia, heads westward to find a life that doesn't resemble a mockery of everything he's ever known. After brief stops, he finds himself an adopted member of a small band of Osage that have wandered to Texas. A series of events thereafter display the necessity to him of his leaving his new family and trekking further, becoming a miner, scout, vigilante, and rescuer to a young Comanche/Choctaw boy, all the while attempting to return to the Osage and never forgetting Virginia. Everything he finds seems unrelenting in its pursuit of pushing him further away, never knowing where to call home or whom to call family. It is only through immense trial that he finds answers to the questions plaguing him for so long.