A penniless law student, Jonathon Locke takes a teaching contract in Big Blue Basin in southern Utah in 1899. A non-Mormon, he is plunged into the rural frontier Mormon culture less than a generation away from the first pioneers that settled the area. Acceptance, intolerance, sin and righteousness all impact young Jonathon, as do the unforgiving elements on this harsh red sandstone frontier. Jonathon's spiritual and physical struggles in this environment are further complicated in that several young Mormon women take a fancy to the law student turned teacher less than a decade after polygamy was abandoned. Based on actual incidents, events and areas in rural frontier southern Utah, Await the Dawn on a Mormon Frontier, recounts the story of settlers struggling to live and prosper in a beautiful but inhospitable land.

Pink Molliver is upset. A family history report is due for both school and church that conflicts with an adventure with his rancher dad to chase and lasso Desert Blaze, king of mustangs. Pink, feeling guilty, goes for the wild-horse chase. But he worries. Then, on the range, an old owl tells him how to approach Desert Blaze, a magical mustang capable of flying into space. Astride Desert Blaze, Pink, his sister Molly, and Shep, their dog, sail off into space to the Planet of All-Family Histories, where Pink may yet get his report. But fierce, sharp-toothed, fire-spitting lizards stand in the way. They threaten not only his report but any of them ever getting back.