Cate is a plucky girl growing up in Indian Territory (modern day Oklahoma,) in 1892, who hungers to see more of the world. When a botanist comes to take her brother James with him to Nigeria to search for a cure for cancer, she does her best to persuade him she is the better candidate. When her efforts to impress go south, she schemes to get her brother out of the running by getting him married off. The love poem she forges in his handwriting is misdirected and lands in the wrong hands. This mess needs sorting, but first, she must tackle a case of mistaken identity and save the life of a mentally challenged man, sentenced to hang based solely on her father's testimony. With a marriage to arrange, pheasants to raise and a horse to break in, a skunk to apologize for, and Jimmy Davenport to lick some sense into. Is it any wonder some of her plans go awry? This is the first in a series of "Cate Darringer" books.