Daniel "Fox" Matthews, sent to Little Bighorn by the president to keep an eye on hot-headed General Custer, is haunted by guilt for a battle outcome he couldn't prevent. The raucous gold town of Deadwood, South Dakota seems like the perfect refuge, although it's located in the Black Hills, sacred land to the same Sioux Indians who decimated Custer's troops. Madeleine Avery, raised to be a lady in Philadelphia, is appalled when she arrives in Deadwood with her family. Slowly she unbends, coaxed out of her shell by a powerful attraction to Fox and a journey into the world of the Sioux Indians.