Along the Red River Valley, the métis people encounter deceit and destruction as a trusted friend discovers a macabre secret in this historical western. Big John McTavish has been hunting and trading among the métis buffalo hunters of the Red River Valley for more than thirty years. He’s a trusted member of the indigenous nation, and a leader of their twice-yearly buffalo hunts. However, when he returns to the settlements in the fall of 1832 with a mountain man he’s rescued from a Chippewa war party, the outsider unleashes devastation on the unsuspecting hunters—a kind of destruction that will follow them onto the buffalo ranges that border the lonely Missouri River. Before the hunters return home, Big John will learn the macabre secret that has brought the trapper from the far reaches of the Rocky Mountains. He will discover a daughter he thought he’d lost forever, and relive the horror that took her away. And the métis will come to realize that if they are to survive as an independent nation, they must free themselves from the powerful Hudson Bay Company—as well as from the man they have viewed as their friend for decades.
