The Reckoning is the story of a father's love for his son—the story of Clay and Billy Underwood. Clay is a sinewy, lean, 40-ish redneck, a former rodeo wrangler who made a wreck of his life—thanks in no small part to his siren-like former wife, Billy's mother. The book opens as Clay, freshly broken-out of an institution that might be jail—or a psychiatric ward—kidnaps Billy, bent on taking him on a backcountry elk hunt in the Rocky Mountains in Montana.

Clay is a decent but unlucky man driven by a profound desire to connect with the son he barely knows. He wants to share with Billy something of value—something beautiful—although this yearning is something he's hard put to identify, much less articulate. In Clay's roughneck world, and in his hardscrabble soul, that means hunting, for Clay is at his best and most competent, and he feels most in touch with his god, in the natural world.

But the hunt goes badly awry—and ultimately turns into a disaster. Clay and Billy become lost in the wilderness, ultimately stumbling onto a ranch property where they are mistaken for common poachers—and where Clay decides to make a stand that will ultimately leave his son alone, and lost in the Rockies.