Despite his youth and deformities, Three-Rivers is a renowned visionary among the Longhouse-people. So it is no surprise, that when an insane white savage comes into Mother Earth seeking Hiawatha, that it is Three-Rivers who meets him by chance under the looming forest above the Shellfish-water. There is cause, however, for surprise, and also an otherworldly quest; for this man is possessed by a potent flesh-demon, brings dread warnings of evil invaders, and has been sent into the world by a thunder-conjurer from a mysterious place beyond the very Sunset.

An adventure about time travel and human nature narrated from four unique viewpoints:

Born to a single mother in East Baltimore in 1982, Charlie Robinson is a genius whose love for science enables him to escape the ghetto. In 2008, as a young quantum physicist, Charlie becomes frustrated and abandons his time-travel project to found a religion. A year later he is confronted by his own disciples from the future who have finally constructed the time machine he designed. Charlie's 'sponsors' from the future enlist his aid in setting up a 'genetic reclamation' or 'time-hunting' unit in the 21st Century from where the deep fertile past will be harvested to benefit a distant and barren future.

Every job Jay Bracken lands seems to end badly; even the Juarez meth-lab raid—go figure? When Jay is recruited as a bodyguard for a team of time-travel geeks he feels like the luckiest knucklehead ever to hop a bus out of West Virginia. With such smart coworkers what could possibly go wrong?

Three-Rivers, born epileptic, autistic, and with a crippling scoliosis to Mohawk parents in 1523, and adopted by the Seneca prophet WhiteSkyCanoe, is a language savant, precocious visionary and spiritual median. In 1538, during a vision quest in the forest, he befriends an insane White warrior. This man claims to be a child of a world beyond the sunset, and is bent on abducting WhiteSkyCanoe and a beautiful lady chief of Summer on behalf of a mysterious Burnt Man; a magic-worker with the awesome power to command Thunderer to carry his servants to Mother Earth and worlds beyond.

This event spurs Three-Rivers on a multi-faceted quest as he seeks entry to the House of Furthest Sunset, salvation for his damned friend, and is ultimately compelled to take on the burdens of a messiah in defense of his people and their imperiled world.