In Tilden, Mormon polygamists, native Shoshoni and the last of the rangeland herdsmen join immigrants from Japan, Italy, Mexico, Russia, and Germany, all unconsciously trailing in the wake of the Bonneville Flood through nineteenth and twentieth century Idaho. Told through the lives of a speech-impaired WWI veteran and a local farmer a generation younger, Tilden captures how the Carey Act and world affairs catalyzed and transformed southeast Idaho.