It's 1950 and Marge O'Connor is in her first year of teaching. She has the upper four grades in the two-room school at Camp Five, a logging camp attached to the mill town of Kinzua, Oregon. Deciding that she would like to ride horseback in her spare time, Marge takes a trip to Bend to buy an Appaloosa from the Happy Appy Ranch. The ninety-four-year-old owner is murdered and Marge gets caught up in the swirl of events. Someone thinks she has some deadly information and follows her home to launch a Molotov cocktail at her as she sleeps. Things go from bad to worse until Marge figures out who the killer is and takes steps.