It's 1856 and Samuel "Mac" MacCallister returns to his Lake Okoboji, Iowa cabin after four months only to find that it has been "lent" to Sadie Pritchard and her two young sons. Sadie's husband is dead and one child is recovering from smallpox.

Mac is not happy, but his infant daughter needs a caretaker and Sadie is as good a choice as any until she and her children can join the next wagon train west.

As they hunker down for the winter, Mac and Sadie have no idea that a renegade band of Sioux are bent on revenge. The Sioux have been degraded, lied to, and slowly watched as their way of life disintegrated.

The fates of two very different families, each hoping to survive, will collide in this based on a true story event.