A redwood cannot change its nature. Can a dope dealer? An ex-con pot-grower, full-blooded Yurok, and big-wave surfer, Hobart Hawkins, tries to go straight after prison. While climbing giant redwoods, he falls for his biology professor, Faith Bartlett. But Faith wants to save 800-acres of old-growth forest, and her NGO needs cash--lots of cash. Hobart, blinded by love, decides to grow a last, illicit crop to avoid a clear-cut--and conquer a heart. Moral problems beset Hawkins, problems that challenge the code his long-dead father instilled in him. Should he honor a million-dollar debt to a dead man's widow? Should he take the life of an evil thief? Should he sully the pure Faith Bartlett by dragging her into the heart of his illegal enterprise? The answers can only be found high in the branches of the world's tallest trees.