In the fall of 1965 Leonard White Eagle, a full-blood Dakota (woodland Sioux) is living in the north woods of Minnesota and trying his best to live in the manner of the Grandfathers, including their religion. But his very freedom is theatened when he is framed for the murder of a white man whom he once threatened with death. To survive, he turns to the mystical religion of his forebears and a cynical, hard-drinking lawyerJack Collins.