When Allison Culbertson takes the case of Joey Red Horse, an Osage Indian charged with stealing a sacred artifact from the Heartland Mound Builder Museum, she finds herself in the middle of a courtroom battle pitting contemporary American Indians against a private museum over legal rights to the bones of "Bootheel Man," a Native American who lived, fought, and loved Cahokia and Southeast Missouri in the year 1050. Morley Swingle combines the historical mystery of the disappearance of 30,000 souls who inhabited Cahokia ten centuries ago with a contemporary murder mystery and legal thriller in a suspenseful story combining history, law, and fiction.