He stumbled into her life one cold, bitter day, almost dead from a bullet in his side. Instinctively, Rachel Yoder reached out to help the stranger, for kindness was in her nature. What she could not know was that this simple act of mercy would forever change her life and challenge her deepest beliefs. Until then, life for Rachel Yoder had been a straight path, however brutal. She had come to Montana with her family and a scattering of other "Plain People," an Amish sect which had fled the corrupting influences that threatened to destroy their simple way of life. In this wild new territory, she had married Ben Yoder, also raised as part of the sect, yet blessed with a passion and a humor that belied his severe upbringing. It was there too that she had borne him a son, Benjo, and shared his life as a sheep farmer. The way of the Plain People was simple, harsh, and direct, their focus on God and on His bidding. They turned the other cheek in the face of violence, and lived "plain," avoiding a society they regarded as sinful. Worldly love was not a thing they allowed to dominate their lives, although Rachel had loved her husband Ben -- loved him with a passion that sometimes frightened her and seemed to border on sin. So when he was killed -- hanged by a vigilante posse that falsely accused him of stealing cattle from a neighboring ranch owned by a powerful and ruthless man they called the Baron, abetted by his mysterious wife, Ailsa, and his headstrong half-breed son, Q