When the body of Kiki Wallowingbull, a troubled young Arapaho is found on the frozen banks of the Little Wind River on the sparse, open plains of the Wind River Reservation, the murder looks like the results of a drug deal turned deadly. Except for the fact that Kiki had recently spent time in Hollywood trying to uncover the truth of what happened in 1923, when his great-grandfather had gone to Hollywood with other Arapahos and Shoshones to star in the silent film, The Covered Wagon. Kiki's great- grandfather was the only one not to come home. Through the decades, the family has held to the belief that he was murdered in Hollywood. Now the family is convinced that Kiki was killed because of what he had learned, and that someone is still determined to keep the past buried.

When Jesuit priest Father John O'Malley and Arapaho lawyer Vicky Holden are drawn into the investigation, they find themselves on a trail that leads through the dark world of drugs on the Wind River Reservation and, ultimately, the giddy no-holds-barred world of Hollywood in the 1920s, when the studios made the law and the murder of an Arapaho actor could be swept away.