Corn Blossom, a young girl of the Choctaw Indians living by the Alabama River, grows up well-protected in her father's village. Her chief, Tuscalusa, is a powerful man feared by neighboring tribes. At the same time, in the far north on Turtle Island, a young man of the Menominee named Machwao is preparing for his first major trading journey to the south. Their two lives take a dramatic turn when men from a distant land, wearing strange helmets and riding fearsome four-legged monsters, rampage through the land, killing and burning. The Spaniards destroy everything in their path in search of gold; however, the worst danger they pose is invisible: diseases decimate the indigenous population and devastate thriving cultures. Corn Blossom also falls into the clutches of the Spanish conquistadors as a slave on their way north.