Shortly after the Civil War, Meg Greenfield’s settled life as an unmarried store clerk changes dramatically when she inherits a gold mine deep in Apache country. Driven by an uncertain promise of wealth, she faces a tough choice: trust a lawyer with shady friends; or throw in with an old lover who abandoned her once to pursue his own search for gold. Despite daunting odds, she sets out to find the mine on a quest that is filled with hope and fear, and torn with treachery and violence. The quest finally ends in the bloody ashes of a destroyed town.