Something's amiss in Oregon's backcountry. A teacher spots a scruffy stranger loitering near the Forest Lake grade school, and there's a young boy missing in a neighboring county. Then eight-year-old Cody Benson, on an outing with his grandfather in the Big Bat Wilderness area, vanishes. Ken Blake, the deputy sheriff coordinating the search for Cody thinks he wandered off and froze to death. Cally Benson, Cody's mother, and eventually, the townsfolk are convinced a registered sex offender, living nearby in a run-down mobile park, abducted the boy, and Ken botched the search. When the shaken town demands answers, they hurl rumors and accusations like primordial spears, but they are all wrong about what really happened to Cody.