Returning to St. Elmo stirs up Hank's memories of her death and his own love affair with an older woman. In paying a long-forgotten debt to Doctor Tipton, the grim Hank strikes an unlikely friendship with the convivial doctor. But Lucius Tipton is appalled to discover what Hank truly plans for St. Elmo. The rainmaker unleashes a devastating flood, destroying lives, property, livestock. Hank Beecham leaves, vowing to take his money out of St. Elmo's soul.
Time means nothing to Hank.
Eight years later, he sets up at Shiloh, prepared to take his revenge. Based loosely on historical events in 1916, Caveat tells a tale of rain and revenge, the power of the past to imprison and to illuminate. About the author Caveat follows Laura Kalpakian's two award-winning collections of stories and six other novels, including These Latter Days and Graced Land . Winner of a National Endowment for the Arts Award and two Pacific Northwest Booksellers' Awards for Excellence, Kalpakian is a California native. Born a good Mormon in genteel Salt Lake City, Ruth feels religiously compelled to marry Samuel Douglass, a man she scarcely knows.