For the colleys of southestern Missouri the war between the states is a plague that threatens devastration despite the family's avowed neutrality. For eighteen year old Adair Colley it is a nightmare seen at its most terrible on the day the union militia arrives to set her house on fire, driving her brother into hiding and dragging her widowed father away, beaten and bloodied. Left to care for two young sisters, Adair sees no road but the one that leads away, and they start out on foot into the winter mountains in search of a safe haven
