As the nation grapples with Prohibition, Rosa Barclay lives on a California rye farm with her volatile husband who has lately found another source of income far outside the federal purview. Mother to 8 children, she mourns the loss of 4 who succumbed to the mysterious wasting disease that is now afflicting young Ana and Miguel. Two daughters born of another father are in perfect health. When an act of violence shatters Rosa's resolve to maintain her increasingly dangerous existence, she flees with the children and her precious heirloom quilts to the mesa where she last saw her beloved mother alive. As a flash flood traps them in a treacherous canyon, only one man is brave-or foolhardy-enough to come to their rescue: Rosa's first love and the father of her healthy daughters. Together they escape to Berkeley, where a leading specialist offers their only hope of saving Ana and Miguel.