a story of family strife mixed with sexual incest combined with racial discrimination seems a flash of violence cascading off America's multi-media of this century. But all the personal pain patterned from today's media blasts is told in the story of a young, half-Melungeon girl running from the horrors so original to humans even in the early year of 1809. This strong young teen is aided in her escape by a mixed-blood Osage youth also running from his past to his future. Fighting fear, exhaustion, starvation, and all the natural barriers of the Kentucky wilderness, the pair finds trails, crosses rising streams, and fights for their lives against nature and censure of man. As Charity Baxter flees from her origins she is followed by both the worst and best of her past. Holding only an ancient Port-a-gee knife given to her by her grandmother of the mountains and reunited with the one great blessing from her dead father, she and her companion now are pushed into a small community to be tested by the colorful, yet rowdy citizens of a small Mississippi River crossing. With the growing strength of self-reliance and the great gift from her grandmother and father, Charity finds both her will and her heart tested as she attempts the final, dramatic drive to cross into Missouri Territory and America's new West.