Hoke Mathews is fifteen, orphaned, and now he's running scared after having killed a man. Is Hoke a criminal? Will his deed be viewed as murder? Are the authorities on his trail? It will take him twenty years to learn the answers as he avoids the town that holds his darkest memories. But suddenly, a light appears on the horizon beyond Independence, and it's pulling him back. Hoke can't make out the origins of the light, but he feels its pull as strongly as he felt the pull of a light on the night he fled--a light that offered him hope in his darkest hour.