Abraham, self-reliant and a man of faith, contracts pioneer fever to migrate west from North Carolina in the 1800s. Whetting his appetite for adventure is Big Jen, who spins yarns about Six Bulls country in Missouri, with prairie grass as high as a horse's eye. Woven together are Abraham's confrontations with disasters, slavery, Hooker-the slaver, and American history leading to the Civil War. The novel captures the spirit of men and women carving out new lives on the frontier, revealing the roots of a new nation's greatness and its darkest shame, as war looms.
