1903 - 1918 - The American Southwest, the Navajo Indian Reservation, a vivid landscape of mesas, natural arches and canyons. Early Hollywood California, the first moguls of silent film and their reckless stunt pilots. Mud-soaked trenches of WWI and the skies above them, filled with brave young pilots, and their flaming, spiraling biplanes. Against these wildly different backdrops, two unforgettable characters struggle to save their lives, their love and their dreams.

Chooli Mckenna, a beautiful and precocious orphaned, Navajo girl, adopted by white trading post owners, thought of as a witch by her people and hated by her brother. Isolated with only a single friend, Roy Mitchell, and her coywolf companion, Shadi. Artist, reader of encyclopedias, trainer of ravens, student of the new technology of flight.

Roy Mitchell, young cowboy, a natural hero, who dreams of flying airplanes while working his family's Utah ranch. Infatuated as a boy with the intriguing Chooli and in love with her as a young man. Circumstances force what is left of Roy's family to southern California, where fate provides a chance to fulfill the dream of flying.

Their love must survive separation, hatred, deception, jealousy, the influenza epidemic of 1918, the deadly skies of World War I and the lethal and unrelenting attacks of her crazed brother.