The Ghost Horse Cycle, of which Legend Days is the first novel, is Highwater's attempt to define his own history and cultural past and to link it to the history and culture of Native Americans in the Great Plains. Amana, the central character of the novel, is a Blackfeet Indian of the Blood Band. The reader meets her as a smallpox epidemic is about to come to her village and, through her eyes, sees the decline of the Northern Plains Native American tribes as the white man slowly pushes across the western territories and becomes more powerful than the native peoples.

In an interview given to Publisher's Weekly, Highwater stated that he is interested in the things that happen when "barriers are crossed and cultures interact." Thus, in Legend Days, he tells two parallel stories. One is the story of the adventures of Amana after she...