Will Penny plot
"The brute in every man was also in him... And the love and the violence!"
Will Penny is an aging cowboy. He accepts a job from Alex, foreman at the Flat Iron Ranch, to check the ranch's territory for passers-by and worse: intruders. Will finds Catherine Allen and her son in his assigned mountain cabin. Catherine's wife and guide to Oregon recently left her and her son. Ashamed to evict mother and child from his cabin just as the bitter winter of the mountains sets in, Will agrees to share his cabin with both until spring when the thaw sets in. But it's not just the snow that is slowly thawing, the lonely Will and Catherine soon forget their mutual animosity and begin to develop a deep love for each other.