Lola Wicks, a big-city reporter, came to Montana to see an old friend, and ended up staying.  Now, she's involved with the sheriff, who is part American Indian.  When a beautiful member of the Blackfeet Nation turns up frozen in a snowbank with a mysterious brand on her forearm, Lola follows rumors that lead to the North Dakota oil fields. Dakota shows the frightening underside of a boom-and-bust economy; of the effect on a small town when big-city money washes in, accompanied by hordes of men far from their families; of what happens when the old rules no longer apply, but the new ones are yet to be determined.