About:

1865, the American Civil War is at an end.

The last surviving members of the Southern, McPherson family are journeying to California in the hopes of starting a new life. Adius, a veteran of the war, is haunted by terrible memories of the battlefield, memories that he cannot chase from his mind. He leads his stoic but distant wife Sarah, young brother Abel, and Abel’s child wife Lily from the ruins of their once wealthy estate in Georgia to the untamed west. The family travels by train as far as the rail lines will take them and then, with nothing but two horses to carry their minimal possessions, trek on to California.

On their journey Abel is instructed to tie off the horses one night but fails to do so and the next morning the horses are gone! The family is forced to continue their treacherous journey on foot. Tension rises as the McPhersons struggle on, battling the hostile elements and Adius’ ever intensifying and reoccurring ‘waking’ nightmares. Hunger and exhaustion plague the family who are relieved to find a small shanty standing alone in the mountains. Unsure of what they will find but desperate for resources, they enter the ‘shibang’ and come face-to-face with the unexpected.

Anibal and his sons Carlo and Jesus are the last remaining survivors of a native ‘Californio’ family. They have a seething hatred for “Yankees,” a term that they use for ALL Americans, the “Yankees” who stole their ancestral land. Anibal meets the McPhersons with a raging temper and quickly the two families are caught up in a dangerous shoot-out. The McPhersons have no choice but to run for their lives and are chased for miles into the rugged mountains but are unable to escape. Adius realizes that they must stand and fight to stay alive. In the ensuing gun battle he is shot in the stomach as Sarah is forced to shoot and kill Carlo. Anibal is devastated and enraged but his youngest son, Jesus, begs him to stop the killing. In the end, Jesus is forced to shoot his own father in the leg to allow time for the McPhersons to escape. The family can only continue a short distance before Adius, severely bleeding, must stop. Near death, Adius makes his peace with God, Sarah, Abel and Lily and serenely passes away.

Sarah mourns Adius’ death while Abel and Lily, fearful that Anibal will find and kill them, demand that they keep moving on. Wanting to return to Georgia, Lily explodes at Sarah, causing a rift in the family. With their leader gone, tension rises and hope fades while Sarah finds herself ostracized and ignored. As the family hikes along a cliff, Sarah loses her footing and slides over the edge. Abel runs to help her and just as she slips away from his grasp a second pair of hands help lift her to safety. It is Jesus. He admits that he has been following them, claiming he has come to help. Scared and enraged, Sarah and Abel beat Jesus within an inch of his life, horrifying Lily, who begs them to let Jesus live, reminding them that it was he who allowed their escape from Anibal. Jesus is spared and now, also running from his own father, stays with the McPhersons.

Fearful of Anibal picking them off one by one, Abel decides that they must retrace their steps in order to confront him. They return to Adius’ grave and encounter a crazed Anibal and the family is chased, bullets at their heels. Finally, Anibal catches up to them on a high cliff where he traps Abel and tries to force him to fight. Just as Anibal aims his pistol at Abel, point blank, Sarah interrupts with a shotgun blast of her own. She has fired to stop the madness and shouts to Anibal that she is the one who killed his son. Desperate to save Abel and knowing that Anibal will never stop hunting them for his revenge, Sarah lets herself fall from the cliff. This act of selflessness shatters Anibal’s sense of honor and he lets Abel and Lily go.

Months later, Abel and a pregnant Lily finally find their way to the Pacific Ocean, the last remaining survivors of a once great family. Now at the end of their journey but the beginning of their lives together, the young family will start a new adventure in this strange world of California. They have found one thing they never knew they were looking for – the REDEMPTION of their very souls.