Delta Jade Colton is a strong Southern woman, descended from a Choctaw chief and daughter of the Mississippi town of Greenwood. Her handsome neighbor Jasen longs to get closer, but their relationship is plagued by a past she can’t shake. La Guairá, Venezuela. 1828: in the throes of the country’s struggle for independence from imperial Spain, freed slave Manuel Sanz and his wife Maria secure passage to America. What appears to be an ill-fated voyage ends in Manuel encountering a Choctaw Indian and bestowing upon him a special gift. Two years later, the Choctaw Nation’s Principal Chief, Colonel Greenwood LeFlore, sets out on his historic mission to dissuade President Jackson of his resolution to relocate the Indians to the distant Oklahoma territory. Brokering an agreement between his fellow chieftains and the US government, the infamous Indian Removal Treaty of 1830 is born. A solid gold peace pipe cements the deal, but LeFlore isn’t about to let the treasure slip into the wrong hands, and he takes its whereabouts to his grave. For readers of Dan Brown and Michael Connelly, Michael Cravatt has brought us a psychological thriller based on actual historical events where past and present, life and death collide. Michael Cravatt has written numerous medical articles during his forty-one-year career as a physician. He is married, has eleven grandchildren, and currently resides in Germantown, Tennessee.