4.11 avg rating — 283 ratings

"Based on real events.
1871 Abilene, Kansas - America's wildest and most exotic boomtown.
For 15-year-old Will Merritt, Abilene is his first real home. Surrounded by a tight circle of friends, Will is confident he understands his world. Acceptance, however, has a condition—cruel intolerance. Like most Abilenians, Will and his friends despise the shabby settlers whose farms threaten to crowd out the cattle that enrich the town.

And no one is more intolerant than Will’s best friend, Jasper, a boy who seethes with inner rage and delights in tormenting any settler he encounters. But events are about to transform Will from a self-centered youth to a young man of courage and genuine honor. Will’s feelings begin to change when he meets Anna, a poor settler girl whose dignity and determination test his deepest beliefs.

With the scaffolding of his life beginning to wobble, Will realizes that his flamboyant father, J.T. Merritt, has a secret, something hidden far out in the remote prairie. When J.T. makes his stunning secret public, everything Abilene believes about its future is challenged, and the Merritts become outcasts.
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