When tragedy strikes and racial violence ensues, fifteen year-old Justin Coulter is forced from his home in Cooper's Gulch, the logging camp where he has lived all his life. For Justin, things will never be the same. The childhood pastimes-hunting for arrowheads and looking for fools' gold in the creek-have lost their charm. Sunday afternoon picnics and trips to see the circus are things of the past.On an isolated ranch, with only his mother's Uncle Hal and Waters, his father's black partner, to guide him, Justin struggles to find himself and his place in a world that has filled with misery and loss.
Twenty miles from the ranch, folks in the little town of Glory know hard times, too, as they contend with the hardships of the Depression. It is in Glory's one-room school that Justin learns more than how to spell and do long division when he meets Wiley, his new best friend, and Annie, a quiet, pretty girl who speaks to his heart.
As Justin comes to see the world through his own eyes, he finds the strength that hard times bring and learns that kindness and love can be found along the Glory Road.