In 1846, Carolina Harper is still mourning the deaths of her husband and son when she sets out from Missouri to begin her journey along the Santa Fe Trail. Together with a freed slave, a Mexican servant, and a reserved mountain man as companions, Carolina braves a countryside fraught with disease, Indians, and the constant threat of war -- a war Carolina has mixed feelings about, having been born in the United States of Spanish descent.Carolina is convinced that this journey will be the toughest challenge of her life. But what she doesn't know is that her biggest challenge is yet to come, for she will soon come face-to-face with the most feared man in New Mexico ... her uncle -- a man who will stop at nothing in his fight to prevent the invasion of the Anglos.