In 1875, Lieutenant Colonel William R. Shafter and his courageous Buffalo Soldiers, dying of thirst on the Staked Plains, discover a life-saving spring in southeastern New Mexico Territory. As a guide to future settlers seeking water, they build a monument of glistening white rock on a nearby plateau, a spot known today as the community of Monument, New Mexico. Around this landmark, John A. Truett has fashioned a novel about the exciting adventures of Cassandra, a young girl who, in 1875, marries an Army captain and forges her way west, struggling against fire, flood, blood-thirsty Indians and a tumultuous love for the man she ought to hate. Two other novels by Mr. Truett have been published by Sunstone Press: "Clay Allison, Legend of Cimarron" and "To Die in Dinetah, The Dark Legacy of Kit Carson."