Separated from Brown's army, Onion and fellow slave Bob leave the fight in Kansas, only to cross paths with pro-slavery 'redshirts' who escort them to the slave-trading town of Pikesville, MI. Onion is taken under the wing of Pie, a mixed-race prostitute working out of the local hotel, who instructs him in the ways of the world despite her discovering his dangerous secret. Onion soon finds himself enmeshed in a mounting slave insurrection where he learns the consequences of his own actions.