Tate Saint, man of the mountains and now a family man, has had more than his share of Indian uprisings and battles, but has always maintained a friendship with many of the native peoples. While in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, he was known and respected by the Comanche and Ute, feared by the Jicarilla Apache, but when the Apache and Ute ally themselves against the white man, Tate becomes concerned for the safety of his family and chooses to move back to the Wind River mountains.

But when he is confronted with the massacre of a wagon train of settlers on the Oregon trail, and is asked by the mountain man scout for General Harney at Fort Laramie, Jim Baker, to scout out the marauding Indians responsible, he accepts the charge, but mainly out of concern for his own family. And that scout brings him up against a blood-thirsty self-appointed war chief of the Crow who is bent on vengeance against any and all whites for what he believes is the attempt to destroy his own people with disease, murder, and by stealing their homelands.

The truth becomes known about this man who has taken the name of a figure from the history of the Crow people and turned it into one of shame, vengeance and blood-letting. It will take an alliance of a group of freighters, a wagon train of settlers, and a party of the traditional enemy of the crow from the Arapaho band of Tate's first wife to bring an end to this vengeance quest by none other than Bad Heart Bear.