Sadie Bird lives in Shaconage, North Carolina, with Lazarus, a mixed-breed dog she rescued from the forest. Sadie supports herself by harvesting medicinal plants which she uses in her tonics and salves. Having recently buried her husband and children, Sadie is more worried about surviving the winter than the federal government's plan to create the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. When Bowman Marks, a government agent tasked with acquiring thousands of acres of land, arrives at Sadie's place, their initial meeting does not go well. Bowman secretly vows to acquire her land by any means necessary and soon presents an unacceptable offer to purchase. Sadie believes that being asked to sell the graves of her family to the government is "the evilest thing I've ever heard," and decides to fight for her land. In 1929, a woman without a husband is a woman without a voice. Forced to swallow her pride, Sadie asks for help from church members who had cast her out. She soon realizes that to help herself and her neighbors, she must take an active role in a lawsuit against the government filed by Pinkney Rucker, the timber baron who employed Sadie's husband, Elkin, who was killed in a logging accident. Just as it seems Shaconage residents will be forced to leave their land, Elizabeth Marks finds a loophole in some hidden official correspondence while performing clerical work for her father. Lifetime leases, which allowed landowners to remain, were offered to some residents but not others. Will Elizabeth's discovery be enough to save Sadie's land?