As Oklahoma contends with a drought that summer, Rad Sergeant, Peter Logan, Max Frost, Tyler Sergeant and Joshua Myers are searching the mountains behind the Sergeant's ranch for a herd of wild horses. Tyler has another love that summer, and when he is not helping in the search for the wild horses, he is fulfilling his dream of becoming a helicopter pilot.

The boy's discovery of the wild horses creates an investigation that leads them into Missouri where they learn the true story behind the horses and a young man's disappearance from the valley a year earlier. The drought ends with a destructive flood that finds Tyler and his friend Jacob attempting to rescue Jacob's little sister Tori from the floodwaters in the helicopter named Chopper Blue.