The Mississippi Valley in western Illinois – thirty years after the Civil War. Japheth Bunt, a veteran of that war, is a man who lives to hunt and drink – at the expense of honest work. No one’s ideal of a husband or a father. Hannah Bunt, of pioneer stock, is the strong-willed woman who fell in love with him years before, and content with her hard, but simple life on Coon Creek. Elias Bunt – their son. An adventurous boy who watches in fear as his life and the lives of those he loves are threatened by a bitter family feud that rages in the woods and on the roads of Hancock County, Illinois. And, as the 19th century rolls into the 20th, a grown Elias is torn between his love for two women, and his misplaced loyalty to the notorious outlaw, Charlie Birger – as the Bunts are caught up in a struggle to survive the violence and bootleg whiskey war that sweeps across the Mississippi River Valley. A story filled with drama and turmoil, love and hate, heartbreak and humor – with a cast of unforgettable characters as vivid and colorfully drawn as the turbulent times that produced them.