In 1876, a young woman named Kate Vernon was traveling West on a wagon train bound for California. She fell in love with a fellow traveller and soon found herself pregnant. Her lover convinced her to leave the train so they could marry at a small settlement. They rode for several days. One morning Kate woke all alone, her lover, and her horse, gone. She was abandoned in a desert wilderness, and surely would have perished if not for the native Americans that helped her build a small rock cabin, bear her child and eke out a small existence. She wrote of her experiences in a diary. In 1905, Joe Ward found her diary in the empty shack. Kate was nowhere to be found. Her son was buried nearby with a simple stone marker. The diary entries ended when she wrote of her child's death. This is where my story begins.