Starr Wyman is hedged in on all sides: caring for her war-broken brother, tormented by her crooked father, still in mourning for the disappearance of her mother. Her father, the Bible-quoting "Wint" Wyman, dismisses her herbalist work as witchcraft, but when a body drops and her brother is responsible, Wint calls on Starr to make the corpse disappear.

Enter the mysterious Jase Patton, hunting an ivory artifact owned by Wint Wyman. Starr agrees to help Jase recover the piece, in exchange for a new life far away. But neither Jase nor the treasure are all that they seem, and Starr must deal with a wound no herbal treatment can cure.