1859 San Francisco. Nita-short for "Bonita," her mother's name-is an energetic, intelligent, precocious twelve-year-old. She yearns for adulthood, chafes at the notion that she's a little girl, not ready for the challenges that beset her in the turmoil of this new city on the brink of cataclysmic upheaval. Readers follow Nita through encounters with the Underground Railroad (Yes, it did operate on the West Coast.), the forced removal and attempted...