Led by Talking Coyote's prophetic vision, those who honored nature and all the animals the Great Spirit created have been taken from a dying earth and into a new life. Now, they must live very differently--hunt and preserve their food, make tools of stone and hide--in short, adapt to a life without the most basic convinces. For all the things taken from them, there are miraculous things give. Crying Woman, barren in her old life, now finds herself with child. Elk Caller falls in love with a beautiful woman, only find she is in truth an elk. Dog men and women and other animals may take off their outer coats and become human. But this world holds an invisible danger. Lowanachen whispers in the ears of the unwary, seducing them into madness and murder. His evil turns tribe against tribe, brother against brother. And if this evil has its way, no one will survive its bloodlust.