In bitterly divided western North Carolina, Confederate troops execute thirteen men and boys suspected of Unionism. The Shelton Laurel Massacre, as it came to be known, is a microcosm of the horrors of civil war--neighbor against neighbor and violence at one's own front door. Told by those who lived it--the colonel's wife, a helpless witness; the jealous second-in-command who gives the fatal order; the canny mountain woman who cares only for her people and her land; the conscript, a haunted man seeking redemption; and the mute girl, whose folk magic yields an unexpected result--these voices offer an intimate glimpse into the lives of five people tangled in history's web, caught up together in love and hate.