It has been seventeen years since Jeremiah St. Cloud left Florida's rough-and-ready Cable Counties. Since then, he's spent four years at West Point, four more serving in various desert wars, and nine working with the 108 Messengers, an obscure and highly secretive military unit. Now he's returned home.
Cloud is back less than ten hours before his childhood friend Earl kills the son of the local lumber baron. Pop Fuller controls most of Central Florida's lumber, and he is enraged to hear of his meth-head son's death.
While evidence suggests the death was an accident, the local sheriff slams Earl behind bars and starts making life in prison a living hell for Cloud's buddy-all under Fuller's direction.
But Cloud won't stand for it and sets out to prove Earl's innocence. As he puts increasing pressure on Fuller, it becomes evident the lumber king has a thriving illegal side business which, if revealed, would put the man away for good. And Fuller can't allow that.
As their feud comes to a head at the lumber baron's private wild game club, an old-fashioned manhunt is about to start.
But who is the hunter and who is the prey?