Two former prisoners of the Vietnam War, one an Indian from the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and the other a veterinarian, both alcoholic and psychologically scarred, reunite and fly to Montana's Glacier National Park. When they make a forced landing in the wilderness, their plane breaks a strut and they have no choice but to make camp for the winter. Eventually, two young sisters who have wandered off their trail join them. Marooned together in a small cabin during fierce winter storms, they struggle to keep warm, find enough to eat and, hopefully, wait for a break in the weather. All four are lost, not only physically, but also psychically, and it is this unplanned intimacy, the struggle to survive, and the developing friendships that lead to the transformations that lie at the heart of this novel.