In 1870, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, an elderly widower and Civil War veteran, drifts through northern Texas, performing live readings from newpapers to paying audiences. In Wichita Falls, he is offered a fifty-dollar gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives near San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johann Leonberger's parents and sister, and took the little girl to raise as their own. Rescued by the U.S. Army, the ten-year-old girl has once again been torn away from the only home and family she knows. The four-hundred-mile oddyssey through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves dangerous. The Captain must watch for thieves, Comanche and Kiowa, and the federal army -- and corral the wild Johanna. Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors begin to trust each other and forge a bond. But in San Antonio, Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon Johanna to strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden, or become -- in the eyes of the law -- a kidnapper himself. -- From back cover.