Margaret Wrinkle reads from "Wash"

In early 1800s Tennessee, the pressures of westward expansion and debt threaten to destroy everything Richardson, a troubled Revolutionary War veteran, has built. So he sets Wash, a young man he owns, to work as his breeding sire. Wash struggles to hold onto the spirituality inherited from his shamanic mother, while despair and disease lead him to a potent healer named Pallas. But once Richardson and Wash find themselves at a crossroads, all three lives are pushed to the brink.