After the death of his father from black-lung disease, Sam Bradley was faced with raising himself under deplorable conditions. He had to overcome social biases and extreme poverty with only his innate intelligence and invincible tenacity to sustain him. Lacking even the most common necessities in his low-rent housing project home and residing with a hateful custodial aunt, he faced a lonely, nearly friendless environment and a murder accusation involving a girl he had just met. Fortunately, discovering his Cherokee ancestry would give him the essential strength to survive and meet his eventual indomitable partner, Charlene Gerard.