In the turbulent West of the late 1850's James Shannon left West Texas for New Orleans. In the dark streets he would be shanghaied and taken aboard a ship headed for the pirate-ruled Caribbean. An eventual escape to the island of Haiti led him to a compassionate Indian native and a wealthy young American beauty who would secretly help him return to America. But when James reaches his family's West Texas ranch, his grief begins anew as he finds his homestead burned, his Mother and Father dead and his sister Elizabeth a prisoner of the hostile Apaches. This fast-paced historical novel moves to Colorado and the Mesa Verde area involving mountain Utes, and outlaws.