Arizona Territory, the 1870s. Savage war rages between the white man and the Apache. And three people are caught in the middle: Coyote, an Apache chief seeking peace, trying to find a refuge for his small band of wanderers; Lieutenant Austin Hamilton, commander of remote Camp Walsh, a man sympathetic to the Indians' plight; and Calvin Taylor (nicknamed Choctaw), a 17-year old white boy. Choctaw has been taught to hate Apaches, something reinforced by his own bloody experiences. But his loyalties are torn when he unexpectedly falls in love with an Apache girl. Each finds himself at the center of this bitter conflict, enmeshed in treachery and violence, with their own lives, and the peace they're striving for, threatened by enemies on all sides.