Barnaby Skye, a pressed seaman in the Royal Navy, jumps ship at Fort Vancouver in 1826 with little more than the clothes on his back and a belaying pin for a weapon. Fighting for life, starving, hiding from his pursuers--the Hudson's Bay Company and the British Navy--he follows the Columbia River inland toward a fate he never anticipated. In a trapping brigade, Skye falls in with legendary mountain men such as Jim Bridger and Tom "Broken Hand" Fitzpatrick...

"Throatlatch, Wyoming, is a sinister town that preys on travelers. One of them is No Name, a drifter who lives his life without purpose. Something about the little town obsesses No Name, and he finds himself drawn into a whirl of evil--murders and cruelties all done in the name of virtue. No Name soon discovers that Throatlatch is the home of a cult that wants to bring paradise to earth. Will No Name resist? Or will Utopia kill him, too?"--Back cover....