California or Bust! For Leah Cabot, gently raised in Boston and the last surviving member of her family after the ravages of the American Civil War, the trek Westward starts as a journey towards a dream. But the dream quickly turns into a nightmare. Extremes of heat and cold, thirst and starvation, savage Indians and renegades all take their toll on the toiling group of pioneers. And over riding everything Leah is the cynical contempt of Cole McCullough, the enigmatic stranger who mysteriously joins their wagon train. How can Leah, a loyal daughter of the North, feel anything but loathing for this Southerner… an enemy in their midst!