Ferrell Swan has fled the shambles of his life in Ohio for the vast and empty landscape of Idaho’s high desert. Here he tries to escape his past and its failures—even to escape memory itself. He seeks solace in sunrises and sunsets, wild mustangs and wheeling hawks, and the coyotes that roam his one hundred acres of scrubland. Through visits from his stepson and his ex-wife, through occasional contacts with odd and reclusive neighbors, Swan confronts himself in order to realize his humanity.