Draws on oral histories of the Great Plains blizzard of 1888 to depict the experiences of two teachers, a servant, and a reporter who risk everything to protect the children of immigrant homesteaders.

Ingeborg Bjorkland and her husband Haaken are succeeding in the Dakota Territory despite the heartache and body-breaking labor, and when Hjelmer travels west to work on the railroad, Penny fears that he won't keep his promise to return.

"Dakota Territory, 1867. The ODriscoll brothers have survived a Sioux massacre, but Michael is gravely wounded. The deserters are fleeing north with Toms lover, Sara, when they come upon a sheltering rock by a river down off the Bozeman trail. If there is game here, they may survive the winter. But their attempts to find food and endure the savage winter are threatened by the arrival in their camp of two trappers, whose presence sets in motion a series...

"A saga of loyalty and survival in the vast, severe American West. Irish immigrant brothers Michael and Thomas O'Driscoll have returned from the brutal front lines of the Civil War. Unable to adapt to life as farm laborers, they reenlist in the army and are thrown into ferocious combat with Red Cloud's coalition of Indian tribes in the heart of Montana's Powder River Valley. Thomas finds love amidst the daily carnage--which leads to a moment of violence...