When revolutionaries seize control of a country in Central America where sixteen-year-old Will is serving at a mission, he and the other volunteers find themselves in a desperate race to escape the violence and return home.

Charts the histories of the California missions of San Antonio de Padua, San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, Nuestra Senora de la Soledad, and San Miguel Archangel, and briefly describes the life of the inland valley Indian tribes, many of whom were Salinan, before the arrival of the Spaniards.