Benjamin January, a free Black man, physician, and musician in the American South in the antebellum years of the 1830s, ends up far away from New Orleans caught up in new adventures out West.

Abishag Shaw is seeking vengeance for his brother's murder—and Benjamin January is seeking money after his bank crashes.

Far beyond the frontier, in the depths of the Rocky Mountains, both men are to be found at the great Rendezvous of the Mountain Men, a month-long orgy of cheap booze, shooting matches, tall tales, and cut-throat trading. But at the rendezvous, the discovery of a corpse opens the door to hints of a greater plot—of madness and wholesale murder.