Crime reporter Eleanor Wooley is reporting on the annual Mother's Day Rodeo when wildfire breaks out in Gold Strike County high country and a dead woman is pulled from the nearby Little Bear River.

The community turns inward in fear. Wooley, following her own instincts and a series of dead-end trails, worries that this year's Rodeo Queen may be the next victim. During a high-country excursion to Me-Wuk sacred grounds to foil a scheme to dam the Little Bear River, wildfire breaks out again. Anishinaabe wilderness guide Leonard Parker appears again and continues to surprise.

In the aftermath of one crisis after another in this second book of the Wild Horses Mystery series, it's a beautiful wild stallion who Eleanor and her lover, rancher Easton Jode, have rescued from slaughter that restores the light in a small rural town living under the shadow of death.