It is 1853, and Steven Morgan, a young doctor with theological training, feels a strong call to leave his medical practice in Connecticut and travel to the Oregon Territory, where he is sure doctors and spiritual leaders are both needed. When he meets Hannah Osborne, he falls in love instantly-and is delighted to learn she is willing to travel west with him. Steven and Hannah marry and begin to make their traveling plans, only to find out before they set out the following year that Hannah is pregnant. In spite of this complication, they travel on the Oregon Trail with the Williams family, hoping to get to Oregon before the baby is due. Even so, halfway through their journey, Hannah gives birth to twin boys. Meanwhile, a group of Pawnee teenagers take advantage of the distraction to steal the group's horses and drive off the oxen. In the chaos, one of the newborns is taken by the Pawnee, while the other is left with the travelers. Now two brothers will grow up in very different worlds, with very different families-and only time will tell what will happen when fate brings them together again.