Chapters 1 - 3 Summary

Chapter 1: Jane Withersteen frowns at the purple, sage-covered slope as she awaits the arrival of the churchmen. A rider has just brought her news that the men of her church are coming to attack her right to befriend a Gentile. She stares out at the land which she owns and loves, thinking of her deep ties to the village of Cottonwoods and the verdant Amber Spring. Jane has inherited all of this wealth and land from her rich father, along with tens of thousands of heads of cattle and the fastest horses in the land. But this year, 1831, has been marked by growing strife between the Mormons and the Gentile settlers in Utah. Jane is Mormon-born, but has befriended many Gentiles in her life and wishes for nothing more than peace between the two factions.

These thoughts of peace are interrupted...