Abstract
In the midst of Reconstruction, pioneering homesteader, livestock breeder, and would-be innkeeper Hamish "Cashdown" Musgrave brings his sprawling family into the Palouse Prairie. Before they succeed, they face claim-jumpers and bandits; floods, fires, and blizzards; and diseases, locusts, and crop losses. But soon Hamish's brother Callum goes missing and remains mysteriously elusive. The railroad refuses to build a line past the Musgrave stagecoach inn and store, and newcomers threaten the very existence of the Palus Indians, despite Hamish's efforts to help the band. Meanwhile, Hamish's attraction to the Paluses' sacred mountain, Steptoe Butte, becomes a fateful obsession. How will Hamish save his fortune? What will become of his spellbound love for Steptoe Butte? And what will he learn of Callum's long self-exile?