In 1876, they wipe out General George A. Custer and his 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Chief Sitting Bull and his Sioux people then flee from the United States to Canada. There, in the autumn of 1877, the Sioux are joined by the remnants of the latest Indian nation to make a stand against the US Army, the Nez Perce. Their survivors are led by Chief White Bird.

A young man follows White Bird to Sitting Bull's camp. He is White Bird's close relative and aims to tell the story of the Nez Perce War from the Nez Perce point of view. This young man's name is Duncan McDonald. Descended from chiefs of the Nez Perce and from chiefs of Scotland's most formidable clan, Duncan's family - first as Highlanders, then as Native Americans - have twice been victims of massacre and dispossession.

Written with the help of Duncan McDonald's present-day kinsfolk on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Western Montana, this real-life family saga spans two continents and more than thirty generations to link Scotland's clans with the native peoples of the American West.