In the summer of 1923

eighteen-year old Elijah Cockburn is enjoying typical small-town Midwestern life in Menninger, North Dakota, when a confrontation forces him and his friends Merle and Pearl and their cousin Axel to hitch a freight and head into the American West.

Awaiting them are

Wobblies, railroad bulls, bootleggers, the Jack Dempsey-Tommy Gibbons title fight, hobo jungles, pickpockets, President Warren G. Harding, and San Francisco, where Elijah's brother Josh shows him a new way to look at life.

Memorable characters

such as Twig, Bear, Boss, Lucretia, Hiram and his dog JJ, Miss Hoar, Black Betty, White Hair, and Duke inhabit the novel.