Dr Ralph Penner became an expert locksmith, a pilot and a professor after his wife and he separated. These pursuits were activities that he used to fill the voids in his life, but they became extremely useful as he was faced with a summer of adventure. After years of being single Ralph is faced with a summer of falling in love with one lady after another and none seem to fit his dream girl status. He does get involved with a human trafficking organization which consumes his entire summer as he tries to protect many young lives caught up in the illegal business of crimes against unwitting young people from other lands. The ladies that he meets along this summer experience don't seem to fit his requirements of mate selection. Before the end of the book, two of the ladies become very important to him, one very young and one somewhere around his age. Ralph goes back to his teaching job with full intentions of keeping in touch with two of his new friends. He finds out that making a tough decision at his age isn't always that easy.

Sid had a choice. He could marry a fourteen year old Mayan or let her die as a sacrifice to the fertility god of Mayan women. The fourteen year old girl was nice, she was sweet and she was very pretty, but oh so young. Her name was Si. He knew he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was in a real tough spot trapped between two dimensions about five-hundred years apart. Socially he would have to comply with the cultural requirement of marriage, but then later as the tribal women began watching her belly, he found out that if she didn't show a child within two years she would still be sacrificed and he would have to marry another. Morally and ethically, he did not intend to make anyone that young his wife. Sounds complicated? It's not; he works it out with the best results for everyone, even himself. How do they have a baby when they really need one without Sid breaking his own cultural code of ethics?

This story is about one of the Wisnook Tribal legends, albeit a lesser legend, but nonetheless, one of great significance. We know the greatest legend among the Wisnook is the White Panther or the spirit leader of the tribe. At the time of this story the steamboat had recently been invented. These powerful machines were beginning to travel the larger waterways. A young man without prior knowledge of such a contraption became familiar with a few of the men who were searching for new ways of travel to improve commerce and human transportation. This story involves the uncanny innocence of a young Indian lad who with good luck and the right companions would be able to do more for the world than he would have otherwise had he not been summoned away from the comfort and friendly life among his family and peers. Did I say peers, he had no peers. He was that much different. His situation was much different than any normal boy born into the Wisnook Tribe, he had a distinct birth characteristic that made him one of the most reserved and most challenged lads of his time. He found it very difficult to be normal even though he didn't mind his difference.