Eska's tale appears to be set in Virginia, though it was shot in his native Texas. The important point, though, is not where but when. Union forces are bearing down on the crumbling Confederacy, where many blacks remain enslaved, some have already escaped and others are caught up in the encroaching war's fog, its brutal back-and-forth.

Southern slave hunters nonetheless still ply their merciless trade. The story opens when Will (Ashton Sanders), a 13-year-old black boy, comes up to a farm and asks to be sheltered with other escaped slaves who are hiding there. His plea hides a treacherous intent. When the others are asleep, he betrays them to the slave hunter Burrell (Bill Oberst Jr), who returns them to captivity.

Burrell's hold on Will is that he has possession of his uncle, Marcus (Keston John). Though Marcus is gruff and demanding, he appears to be Will's only available relative, so the boy clings to him even after Burrell gives him a harsh assignment. Burrell wants to capture an escaped slave named Nate (Tishuan Scott), with the intention of killing him to collect a bounty. So, Marcus is ordered to cross into Union territory and lure Nate back. If he succeeds, he'll get a reward that will buy him a new life. If he shirks the task or fails at it, Burrell promises to hunt him down and kill him.

Would anyone in Marcus' position actually let a threat like Burrell's compel him to return to slaveholding territory once he's made it to freedom? Though the plausibility of this plot point (a similar one arises later, when Will finds shelter behind some fighting Union soldiers, then abandons it in a way that puts him in danger again) may seem debatable, it also arguably reflects the power that the slaveholding ethos and its terrors had over the minds of its victims, as well as the complexities of the war at this point.