Jonathan Asher hides in a hollowed log with his sister while his family’s cabin on the River of the Cherokee burns. There is complete darkness. Outside, a boy’s voice promises, “I’ll come back for you.”

This early memory haunts Jonathan Asher as he comes of age in the epic decade leading into the American Revolution.

Raised at the Asher Trading Post, his world changes with a blood payment for his life to the Seneca.

He takes to the road, first as an itinerant preacher, too young to be not led into temptation,

Then as a peddler and vagabond traveling through a country increasingly at war with itself.

His fortune turns. He becomes a merchant, smuggler, and friend of a fellow smuggler, Benedict Arnold,

And the beloved of a girl who wants to hear every story in the world.

Under the cover of a war profiteer, he offers to spy for the Continental Army in New York.

And before Jonathan becomes the avenger that he believes he must be, the boy, now a man, keeps the promise made on the River of the Cherokee.