A penniless law student, Jonathon Locke takes a teaching contract in Big Blue Basin in southern Utah in 1899. A non-Mormon, he is plunged into the rural frontier Mormon culture less than a generation away from the first pioneers that settled the area. Acceptance, intolerance, sin and righteousness all impact young Jonathon, as do the unforgiving elements on this harsh red sandstone frontier. Jonathon's spiritual and physical struggles in this environment are further complicated in that several young Mormon women take a fancy to the law student turned teacher less than a decade after polygamy...