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Historian Jeremy Cobb is backpacking on the Appalachian Trail, attempting to retrace the tragic journey of eighteen-year-old Katie Wyler, who was captured by the Shawnee after the massacre of her pioneer family in Mitchell County, North Carolina. In late summer, Katie escaped from a Shawnee village on the banks of the Ohio, and followed the rivers through the wilderness to find her way home - a brave journey that ended in sorrow. Jeremy, a city-bred graduate student with no trail experience, is determined to complete his scholarly quest, unaware that his journey will be both a trial of hardships and a mystical experience. He does not know that the spirit of Katie Wyler is still seen wandering the hills, trying to get home. Mountain wise woman Nora Bonesteel sees her every autumn "when the air is crisp and the light is slanted and the birds are still". Hiram Sorley, known as Harm, is also at large in the Appalachian wilderness. Sorely, who has escaped from the Northeast Correctional Center in Mountain City, Tennessee, is the focus of a wide-spread manhunt involving most of the area's law enforcement officers. There's just one problem: nobody wants him caught. Harm has become a folk hero. Sheriff Spencer Arrowood feels sorry for Harm, imprisoned for life for killing a hated local bureaucrat. There is even some doubt about Harm's guilt. Besides, the elderly convict has Korsakoff's syndrome, a disease that robs its sufferers of their recent memories. To Harm, it is always 1967. Harm doesn't even remember the crime. For Martha Ayers, who wants the job of deputy, catching Harm Sorely would be the best way to prove her fitness for the position. Harm, an Appalachian Don Quixote on the edge ofreality, meets both Jeremy and the still-wandering Katie Wyler on his journey back to a home that isn't there anymore. He is the "last moonshiner", holding the dream of an unspoiled wilderness in the fragile web of his delusions. When he goes, it will be lost forever.

"A lyrically written, emotionally charged evocation of present-day Appalachia and its population...will leave you both satisfied and hungry for more....Sharyn McCrumb has few equals and no superiors among today's novelists."

San Diego Union-Tribune

"Heart-stopping...a splendid, elegant novel."

Washington Post

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