During the Civil War, twelve-year-old Dillon Childs's father joins the Confederacy and asks Reverend Jeremiah Culpepper to take Dillon and his six-year-old sister, Jenny, to St. Louis to live with their uncle. The uncle has also joined the Confederacy, leaving the two children alone and destitute in the huge city, where orphaned and abandoned children roam the streets. Dillon, scared for his little sister and what could happen to her, comes to the conclusion they would be better off alone, and sets out to walk back to their home on Current River. Along the way, they run into Lucifer Deal, who...