On a Blue Ridge Mountain peak, three boys hear the rattling of a snare drum deep inside a cave known as "The Jangling Hole," and the wind carries a whispered name.

An old man at the foot of the mountain believes something inside the Hole has been disturbed by a developer's bulldozers. A local reporter is determined to solve the supernatural mysteries that have been shared for generations. Sheriff Frank Littlefield, haunted by past failures, must stand against a public enemy that has no fear of bullets, bars, or justice.

On the eve of a Civil War re-enactment, the town of Titusville prepares for a staged battle, but the weekend warriors aren't aware they will soon be fighting an elusive army. A troop of Civil War deserters, trapped in the Hole by a long-ago avalanche, is rising from a dark slumber, and the war is far from over.

And one misfit kid is all that stands between a town and the cold mouth of hell...