Addled by grief and dissatisfaction, thirty-five-year-old mule breeder John Cyrus Bellman sets off into the wild frontier beyond his small farm in Lewistown, Pennsylvania, on a doomed quest prompted by reports of colossal animal bones found in Kentucky. Promising to return in two years, Bellman leaves behind his only daughter Bess to the tender mercies of his taciturn sister Julie. Bess is forced to make her way in a deceptively hostile world. As father and daughter alike reach out into their own respective wildernesses, they find that the wilderness holds out its hands to them as well.