"For a boy, the Shamus River in northern Maine is a place to be a prince or pirate. For a man, it is a place of predator and prey. Few know the secrets of the Shamus River and her headwaters. Fewer wander far from her shores - many have never returned. Thus begins the tale of young Jack Service and his initiation into the headwaters where the supernatural never rests and the creatures who inhabit the woods come and go in their own time. The river draws at Jack in his dreams, in his confrontation with the creatures which no one ever speaks of, to the final moment when man and animal decide who is dominate. Prince or pirate, predator or prey - you can take the boy out of the woods but you can never take the woods out of the boy..."