Adoptee Clara Jordan moves from the east coast to Red Mesa, New Mexico, and begins a teaching year at the American Indian Academy. Shortly after the start of a new semester, headmaster Joseph Speckled Horse is found dead on Clara’s classroom floor. Both teacher and students are shocked. Clara deals with her students’ grief and her own frustration by daily running in the rough hills surrounding the academy. Carnell Dorame, a talented student and Clara’s favorite, uses the Internet to trace the identity of her birth mother. The school’s computer teacher, Henry DiMarco, invites Clara out for a date and they become lovers. Henry, however, is not what he seems.