The film follows the adventure of David Lamb in the weeks following his broken marriage and his father's death, in the hope to regain some faith in his own goodness and the meaning for the rest of his life. He encounters eleven-year-old Tommie, a strange and unpopular girl who makes Lamb obsessively believe that he can help her escape a fate of spititlessness and emptiness. He takes Tommie for a trip from Chicago to the Rockies, intending to initiate her into the wonder of the wilderness. The journey shakes them in ways they never expects.