In an alternative history where the Indian Removal Act failed, ne'er-do-well Jimmie Paschal is thrown violently into the course of history when the Province of Tejas revolts against Mexico. Jimmie is the offspring of the Ridges, the ruling family of the Western Band of the Cherokee Nation, and his Aunt Emily Agnes flees San Antonio to Jimmie's home, the Free Congo Republic, once known as New Orleans.The Free is a Polyglot, multi-racial city, right in the path of the Confederacy's troop shipments to the new State of Texas. Emily Agnes is assassinated, and Jimmie is enmeshed in a complex series of conspiracies and plots between the USA, the Confederacy, The Five Civilized Nations of Original Americans, the British Empire, the Deseret Theocracy, and a few terrorist organizations, Ghost Dance, the Red Turbans and the Knights of the White Camellia. What is real? What is illusion?But when all is lost, the motley denizens of The Free discover a secret weapon. An ancient woman called Gran, who seems to have the knack of knowing things she should not have any way of knowing about. It's not magic, its worse. It's Hoodoo. A hard fantasy set in an exotic America in the romantic year of 1891.