In the cruelty of a velvet dawn, he placed the canoe in the near shallows at the river's edge. The body bag followed with some effort into the front of the boat. The river ran true and deep, still as a mirror, with the soft light of morning settling on the faint mist over the water like down. Eric paddled along. Under the surface of the water, in their other world, trout swayed with the current. They swam away in front of the canoe as it cut through the water as if leading a procession.

It's 1970 in Missoula, Montana, the Vietnam War still rages, and eighteen-year-old Eric is newly eligible for the draft. Eric's only family is his alcoholic mother, Susan, and his “Grampa Hank,” who hopes to shield Eric from a senseless war.
For Hank has secrets. Now 85, as a young man, his life was framed in violent deaths and reprisals, from the jungles of the Philippines during the Spanish-American War, to his Southern Arizona homecoming.
Though long settled, Hank still grieves for his lost love, whose death set the rest of his troubled life in motion. In truth, Hank is an old cowboy who has lived to see an era he no longer understands, a modern world where history seems to be repeating itself. He is still on the run, living on memories, hidden under an alias, with a price on his head. Suddenly, his and Eric's lives get caught up in events beyond their control, past and present thrown into a whirlwind with characters such as Eric's false-friend Scott, the two-timing Carol, the murderous Bob “Bulldog” Bullock, and the good bad-girl Crystal and her boyfriend Jack Frost, who are attempting to break free from the drug trade.