A fast maturing lad is hunted across the continent to keep his murdered father's self-loading rifle and drawings from profiteers bent on making their profits and the Civil War endless. The lad's grim retreat from the relentless conspirators is packed with primeval fighting tradition, cagey luck, and mounting tragedy in his dismal search for the only person left he can trust, his only living kin. *** The patents mentioned in this book were genuine and in existence at the time of the US Civil War. The horrific threat they posed to altering history was real. -------------------