Shot while hunting in 1972, Anselm Bannon is the first clue in a mystery that began in 1864. Cotton Lee, hired by Max Mayfair to help investigate Anselm’s death, finds ten gold coins minted in 1862 in Anselm’s satchel. The gold coins turn out to be a gift delivered in 1864 by Union soldier Albert Bannon to his southern mistress, Sophie, who is pregnant with his child. Sophie gives the coins to her enslaved black maid in payment for killing the baby. Albert dies an unexplained death soon after, and the black woman flees to freedom with the white child. The gold disappears for more than a century until Cotton Lee opens the satchel. Once the gold is exposed, the secrets of 1864 begin to leak into 1972.