Bucky O'Neill III, is the great grand son of the famous Texas sheriff who road with Teddy Roosevelt and The Rough Riders. Bucky had every intention of becoming a Texas Ranger like his father, but after a tour in the Army in Vietnam, he felt there would have to be a better way to bring life back to himself. Being a Catholic he made motions to become a priest, and did so. Upon taking his vows, he was sent to Saints Peter and Paul's Church in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco.

Jim meet Bucky while on assignment about gangs and the crime in the North Beach district. Bucky was working with young kids to help bring them up to be productive students and adults. During one of his sessions, older gang members forced their way into the church and beat Bucky to the point he was hospitalized. During his hospital stay he met and fell in love with Mary Draper, she was a Candy Striper at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital. Bucky left the Bay Area and moved to Wyoming far into the mountains to retreat from the real everyday world, but would still be confronted by his guilt and failures.

Mary Draper born to a middle class family in Daley City south of San Francisco, she aspired to be a nurse. While working at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital, she met Bucky, fell in love with him, and moved with him to Wyoming. Soon after they arrived she was pregnant. Years later she would become and Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN) and work with Dr. Wilson in the back woods communities.

Dr. John Wilson, M.D. a quiet country doctor, who was forced from the big city mainstream of doctoring because he made a simple mistake. He was able to keep his license and fixing broken arms and delivering babies became his specialty in the back woods.