From the streets of Shanghai to the plains of Texas, a cast of characters fighting over land and identity must sift through the cracks between myth and truth, revealing relationships and plots hidden for most of a century. The key is in a strange, century-old map of the stars carried by a drifter traveling with a young bison named Bill who is more than he appears to be. In this fusion of legend and history, a narrator recalling his 12th birthday chronicles what followed the drifter s appearance a series of events from opposite ends of the earth that evolved in extraordinary ways to shape his coming of age. When the racing prowess of the bison endangers his life, he and the boy escape together on a final, desperate journey across the plains.