The Adirondack Foothills, 1801. Hugh's venture to blast open the wilderness is failing. Is it the uncommon wet season, his crew on the verge of mutiny, or a mysterious stranger intent upon sabotage? Desperate to escape their loveless marriage, his wife Georgie is trapped in the unnavigable woods and rivers. As she broods on her troubles, their willful and stout-hearted daughter befriends the stranger, an entity consumed with the landscape and the ghosts of waylaid soldiers of a nearby battlefield. He is willing to trade the secret to keeping black powder dry. But Hugh won't listen and Georgie is preoccupied with the survival of her small family, and with that of Black Vy, the family cook and a former enslaved woman with whom she has forged a cautious bond. When Black Vy's freedom is again threatened, the two women devise a daring plan of escape through a rugged, untamed wilderness, fleeing the dangerous prejudice of unscrupulous men as well as the stranger that haunts them all.