11-year-old adventurer Resilience "Rizzy" O'Neil and her family are camping and exploring the remote Utah desert. While Rizzy is trying to discover for herself the mystery of the lost Chinese workers, she is violently separated from her family, and must now face the wild expanse of the desert in order to find help. She faces intense heat, thirst, hunger, treacherous terrain, deadly creatures, turbulent weather, all in a land designed to crush the living. Rizzy must call on all her wits, strength, skill, and faith to beat the clock and save her family, and just maybe, a piece of history too.