Charles Wolfe Collins has been investigating various clandestine matters for influential Washington politicians since 1865, having been a confidential operative for General Grant during the War of the Rebellion. In late summer of 1879, he is sent upon a mission into Colorado to assess the disintegrating state of affairs between the mercenary ambitions of white men and the treaty prerogatives of Ute Indian peoples. Drawn into a quagmire of hired provocateurs, vitriolic newspaper propaganda, fraudulent government contractors, a delusionary Indian agent and the baffled frustration of irate Ute chiefs, Charles Collins is charged with preventing a violent collision between U.S. cavalry troops and Ute warriors dedicated to protecting their families. Formidable economic and political interests are determined to contrive a situation within which the Ute people may be decisively eliminated while Collins seeks to unravel the tangle of deception, ultimately placing his trust in a fierce and mercurial war chief. Racing against time, they endeavor to disrupt the predictable outcome of an impending catastrophe.