The year is 1837. The fur trade that bred a generation of daring mountain men is in decline. A trapper by the name of Hugh Falconer knows it's time to look for new horizons, and he looks westward.Organizing a brigade of fiercely independent mountain men is no easy task but Falconer pulls it off, and he keeps them together as he leads them on a trail of constant danger, across the worst desert in the West, over savage mountains, through hostile Indian territory, and into a California of wealth, women, and wine-and Mexicans who aren't fond of interlopers.The journey was an ordeal. Now Falconer and his brigade of hardcases have to survive in a hostile new land. Among them is the callow youth named Eben Nall, who was seeking adventure and found much more-a courage he didn't know he had, and a beautiful young Mexican woman he needed more than breath itself.THE FIRST NOVEL IN A NEW TRILOGY OF EPIC MOUNTAIN MAN TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF HIGH COUNTRY AND BATTLE OF THE TETON BASIN.