Out of the deserts of the Southwest rides a band of renegade Apaches. Led by the mysterious warrior and holy man, Juliano, they have fled the reservation in a last-gasp effort to unite with other bands of free Indians in a violent uprising against the hated white man. In a remote corner of Utah Territory, a small company of Mormon settlers crosses the canyon of the Colorado, blasting a treacherous road through a steep, narrow notch in the imposing sandstone cliff s. Sent by command of their prophet, they hope to befriend the Indians and establish a new settlement near the San Juan River. And hidden deep in the labyrinthine, red rock canyons lives a mysterious and ancient people who inhabit the graceful cliff dwellings of their long-dead ancestors. Three widely different cultures will collide in a whirlwind of violence and betrayal; Philo Hatch and his Mormon brethren, in search of their abducted children; Juliano and his followers, seeking a sacred treasure once spoken of in ancient tribal legends; and the Recordkeepers, an ancient indigenous tribe isolated for centuries in the twisting canyons of the southwestern desert, a people who only wish to preserve their dying way of life and the sacred records they were entrusted with in a distant age.
What will a man do - what crimes will he commit, what sacrifices will be make - for his faith? Is the radicalism of modern day mullahs and their followers far removed from the strange fanaticism found in our own Christian heritage, perhaps lying dormant within our own family histories? Alan McMurdie confronts these questions when his only son commits suicide, and he is left holding the broken pieces of a family that is torn asunder by tragedies that transcend generations of faithful Mormon ancestors. A young boy conceals his baptism from a step father who despises all religions. Later, as a young man, he discovers a fortune in uranium in the deserts of southeastern Utah, and makes a bold decision to abandon it all for the glory of serving God. As a missionary in the southern United States he witnesses firsthand the heartache and the tragedy that sometimes follow those who choose faith over false traditions. Two generations later another young boy will experience the nightmare of being sexually molested at a Boy Scout camp and later will have to confront the awful truth of his own sexuality, an immutable reality that places him at odds with the strict teachings of his Mormon faith. and an even darker secret lies buried within the family's history, a terrible secret from the distant past of an ancestor involved in one of the most shocking and sordid crimes of the 19th century, a crime made more hideous because it was driven by obsessive, fanatical faith. Throughout five generations the McMurdie family has carried the burden that an overzealous faith sometimes places on its adherents. From triumphs of the human spirit to the very depths of delusion and despair, they have given all, suffered all, and witnessed all . . . for the faith.
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