While working on the set of a controversial documentary, Du Pré gets entangled in two struggles—one with a murderer, and another with the US government
When asked to serve as a consultant for a documentary about the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark’s expedition up the Missouri River, Gabriel Du Pré’s impulse is to flee. Eastern Montana isn’t accustomed to getting much attention, and its residents prefer it that way. But the director of the film is dating Du Pré’s daughter, so this hard-bitten fiddler’s hands are tied.
Du Pré agrees to help the filmmakers navigate the river, which is as deadly now as it was in 1805. The Missouri has claimed nine lives in the past three years—a suspiciously high death toll that the FBI wants Du Pré to investigate. While trolling the riverbanks, Du Pré stumbles upon a national treasure: Meriwether Lewis’s lost journals, which the American government will do anything to get back. Meanwhile, when members of the film crew start dying, Du Pré begins to think that the locals who so hate outsiders might be willing to kill to keep them out.