In 1961 in a small Kentucky community (Creekside) after a stormy altercation with his father, Ed, a fourteen year old white boy flees his home and finds himself running blindly through driving rain, chased by thunder, lightning and threatening flood water.He is rescued by a garrulous drunk called Riverboat Bill, an ex Marine, who gives him shelter on his shanty boat, but not before Ed is kicked in the head by a dead cow swirling in the raging stream.Fred Ruby, a black employee of Ed's family, promises to tell Ed how to heal the rift with his dad, if he will accompany his wife and him to church where a rousing gospel group, The Bluebirds, willl sing.After church, where he sees Riverboat Bill in the congregation, Ed learns about the Underground Railroad and begins to awaken to the racial injustice that is everywhere around him. He and a young black/Cherokee boy and a lovely black girl decide to take action for what they believe is just and right.They plunge into cross currents of social change, run afoul of the law, foil a murder plot, help to bust a crooked cop and contribute in their own crazy way to the founding of a park for all the people of Creekside. The story is fast moving, comical, emotionally gripping, sad, joyous and triumphant. Riverboat Bill reveals the unlikely alliances between richly developed characters, black and white, that helped to make a small, but tangible advance towards interracial harmony.