Man-size

On the wind-scoured Canadian plains, fierce young Jessie McRae strikes a blow against the whiskey smugglers poisoning Indigenous communities, slashing their wagons and smashing their casks in a burst of righteous fury. The sabotage ignites a night chase that brings her into brutal conflict with Tom Morse, a hard plainsman who is wounded before he realizes his attacker is a woman. What begins as pursuit turns into a charged reckoning over pride, race, violence, and the frontier trade in liquor. Jessie's defiance forces Morse to confront the moral ugliness behind the life he has accepted, even as his attraction to her complicates everything. When Bully West threatens their tense standoff, Jessie and Morse flee toward Angus McRae's camp, where her stern father demands justice. Jessie admits what she has done, Morse is treated, and then she is publicly whipped—an act that leaves him shaken and ashamed, and deepens the novel's exploration of duty, prejudice, and frontier law. As Bully West plots revenge and Constable Beresford warns of danger, Tom struggles with guilt and Jessie's hatred. The story also follows Onistah, the devoted Blackfoot who loves Jessie with quiet loyalty, as a winter trapping journey in the northern forest turns ominous when she disappears and he finds signs of a violent struggle. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.