The lives of three newcomers--Peter Redwine, a drifter running from his past; Kevin Marigold, a traveling minstrel; and Melinda Tarrigon, a freelance photographer searching for love--intersect when they befriend Henry Duncan, a local black man and Vietnam war hero. Haunted by its demons and prejudice, this Civil War border town balances the well ordered and illogical against random uncertainty in a story of friendhip, betrayal, love, and redemption.

"Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up in the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments."
(from The Grapes of Wrath)