Andrew believes in the importance of loyalty. He is loyal to his family, his hound dog Dash, and his country the Confederate States of America. Although he's too young to join the Confederate Army, Andrew is welcomed into the Home Guard, a group of men who track down deserters and runaways. He and Dash make a great team. But hunting people is very different from hunting raccoons. And soon Andrew's loyalty will be tested like never before.

At Forward Operating Base Loman, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Specialist Dan West is one of the soldiers who regularly risks his life finding and disarming IEDs, with the help of a detector dog named Mouser--but things can go wrong, and an Afghan boy standing on a bomb's pressure plate during an attack is an unexpected danger.