“Don’t love anything overmuch in the backcountry, for the land is a jealous mistress, and she be taking it away.”  

Indentured servants do not fare well in the New World of 1748. Skinny, shivering, and lame, Julian fears for his prospects as he is inspected by buyers on the transport ship docked in Philadelphia. When his bond is purchased by the fur trader and former pirate, Bartholomew Bragg, his forebodings appear well-founded. 

Julian grows into manhood in a violent world where Indian nations struggle to survive war, famine, and disease; settlers stake their lives and meager resources on disputed territory; traders dispense gunpowder, scalping knives, and rum; and bands of renegades murder and thieve free from lawful constraint.

In his travels into the Ohio country and his captivity by the Lenape, Julian learns the harsh realities of life and love on the frontier. In the end, surrounded by enemies and desperate to protect the woman he loves, the jealous land demands its sacrifice.