After years of working with at-risk youth, Chicana social worker Rosa Medina leaves Los Angeless gang-ridden barrios and street violence to settle in the New Mexican village of Puerto de Luna. Her goal: to write a novel about BilitoBilly the Kid. It all sounds straightforward enough, but things get more complicatedand a lot more excitingwhen Rosa is transported back in time to 1879, where she participates in the infamous Lincoln County War, riding alongside Bilito. How Rosa achieves this fantastical feat of time travel, and what she discovers about herself, Bilito, and her Nuevomexicano heritage, unfolds through the course of this novel by master storyteller Rudolfo Anaya.