At just fourteen, Jim Tracey found himself without a friend in the world, running from the Indian war party that had killed his father. But he was saved by a pair of grizzled old fur trappers, and he learned to fend for himself and live off the land.

When Jim finally returns home to St. Louis, he finds that there was more to his father's murder than he'd thought. Though the Indians did the killing, someone else did the planning--someone too close for comfort. Now young Jim must untangle a thick web of lies, and when the dirty dealings come to light he will come face-to-face with a murderer. But if he tastes the vengeance owed him, it won't be as the boy everyone knew as Jim--it will be as a man named Trace McCall...