Before the legend of Preacher there was a man, and before the man there was a boy. On nothing more than a lark, he leaves his family and begins a journey from Ohio westward. Along the way, he runs up against badlands and bad men, loses his freedom, gains his freedom, and learns the first rule of the frontier: do whatever it takes to survive. With ruthless enemies after him, both white men and Indians, he'll head for a place as brutal as it is beautiful, the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains. Two years later, he will come back down from the mountaintop with new skills, and a new future as one of the most feared and admired men of his time, a man called Preacher.