In the midst of Reconstruction pioneering homesteader livestock breeder and would-be innkeeper Hamish Cashdown Musgrave brings his sprawling family into the Palouse Prairie. Before they succeed they face claim-jumpers and bandits; floods fires and blizzards; and diseases locusts and crop losses. But soon Hamishs brother Callum goes missing and remains mysteriously elusive. The railroad refuses to build a line past the Musgrave stagecoach inn and store and newcomers threaten the very existence of the Palus Indians despite Hamishs efforts to help the band. Meanwhile Hamishs attraction to the Paluses sacred mountain Steptoe Butte becomes a fateful obsession. How will Hamish save his fortune? What will become of his spellbound love for Steptoe Butte? And what will he learn of Callums long self-exile? This novel is the saga of the high-spirited Musgrave clan and their many pioneer friends as well as the regions tribes and scoundrels. It is a story of courage resilience triumphs and losses among intrepid Washington Territory settlers following them through the epochal changes of the late 19th century.
