Everything in Its Path

At roughly midnight on March 13, 1928, the St. Francis Dam, which had only recently been built, failed. A wall of water 160 feet high tore down San Francisquito Canyon, hurling sections of the structure, some weighing thousands of tons, more than half a mile. In about four hours the flood reached the Pacific after destroying almost everything across a 50-mile stretch. By dawn over five hundred people were dead or unaccounted for, making it the worst American civil engineering disaster of the twentieth century.

The novel follows Randall Thompson, an archaeologist from Santa Paula, and his daughter Kate, who are digging at a Chumash Indian site in San Francisquito Canyon. As the excavation advances, Randall becomes puzzled by human remains lying under a layer of silt. Kate, meanwhile, wanders through the town of Castaic Junction and the dam's powerhouse, getting to know the people who lived there. Her investigation takes a worrying turn when she discovers that the dam is leaking.

Running alongside the modern storyline is the story of a prehistoric Chumash settlement. Singing Bird, a member of the tribe, is haunted by dreams of water and of her village being swept away. Lone Wolf, the tribe's leader, dismisses her visions and warns her against speaking of them. As storm clouds build, Singing Bird must choose between obeying Lone Wolf and attempting to save her people from the catastrophe she sees coming.

The two girls' lives are linked across the centuries, leading to a striking discovery as they work to protect the people they love from a force that threatens to wipe out everything in its path.