Subienkow is in mortal danger. The fort he and his fellow fur thieves have erected in the snow is in flames - attacked by the very tribe they enslaved to build it - now only he and Big Ivan remain. As Ivan is tortured before him Subienkow must think fast to escape the terrible, protracted death that awaits him. He calls over the chief, Makamuk, and begins to bargain...

Beginning just after the bloody Sioux victory over General Custer at Little Big Horn, the story is told through two unique perspectives: Charles Eastman, a young, white-educated Sioux doctor held up as living proof of the alleged success of assimilation, and Sitting Bull the proud Lakota chief whose tribe won the American Indians’ last major victory at Little Big Horn.

Set in the Mayan civilization, when a man's idyllic presence is brutally disrupted by a violent invading force, he is taken on a perilous journey to a world ruled by fear and oppression where a harrowing end awaits him. Through a twist of fate and spurred by the power of his love for his woman and his family he will make a desperate break to return home and to ultimately save his way of life.