Charles Wolfe Collins is a veteran of the Civil War, an Irish immigrant, a reluctant Pinkerton operative and an independent agent frequently performing confidential investigations for powerful politicians in Washington D.C. In early 1879, he is summoned to the nation's capital by the Secretary of the Interior and requested to gather intelligence regarding the escape of the Northern Cheyenne from Indian Territory and subsequent military actions intended to recapture and punish the fugitives. Collins follows a heartbreaking trail of desperation, betrayals, bloody conflict and extraordinary courage, while the Northern Cheyenne strive to return to their homeland in the Powder River country in defiance of an unsympathetic government, willing to use any means to drive them back to a perilous and disease-ridden reservation. With the steadfast and capable guidance of a Lakota woman scout, Charles Collins must seek information amongst belligerent soldiers and civilians, as well as militant Northern Cheyenne people who have been hounded, ravaged and slaughtered beyond reckoning.