Elizabeth, a young Nez Perce woman, accompanies her father and a company of Hudson's Bay trappers from her tribal lands in the northwest to the unknown Coyotero--the parched desert country of the Gila River. It is a dangerous enterprise, as the little expedition to the southern desert must battle the elements as well as hostile Mojaves, Utes, and Apaches, and a band of cutthroat raiders led by the renegade Etienne LaGrange.