Eighteen-year-old Bendigo Shafter arrives with a group of pioneers in a small Western settlement in Wyoming to begin a new life filled with struggle, adventure, and excitement.

"Wyoming, 1876. For as long as they have lived on the frontier, the Bemis and Webber families have relied on each other...But when Ernest Bemis finds his wife, Cora, in a compromising situation with their neighbor...a man is dead, Ernest is off to prison, and the women left behind are divided by rage and remorse...Cora and Nettie Mae begin to forge an unexpected sisterhood. But when a love blossoms between [their children], bonds are once again tested,...

Set in the small western town of Curtis Wells, Wyoming, episodes follow the romance and marriage of Newt Call and Hannah Peale, and the obsession that Clay Mosby, who owns most of the town, has with young Hannah, who looks remarkably like his late wife, Mary.