In this fictionalized account of a true crime, drifter Buck Powell poses as a policeman to take Nathan Wheeler from a small town's high school. When Amy Sterling learns that her boyfriend has been kidnapped, she immediately suspects Zeb Mulroney, Buck's cousin. Although the police discount her suspicion, her mother Lucinda asks the tenant of their garage apartment, Devon Gray, a retired homicide detective from Texas, to help them search for Buck. Romantically involved with Lucinda, Devon agrees to humor Amy to keep her from idle worry. The three of them set off in his old truck on an all-night manhunt into the mountains. During the night, Devon is challenged by Amy's youth and his love for Lucinda to tackle the problem more gently than he normally would. Achieving partial success, he takes the women home and sets off alone to finish the job. Amy, haunted by the thought of Nathan's suffering, arranges a meeting with Zeb. She takes Devon's gun, intending to use it to discover the truth about Nathan's fate, but a third party intervenes, proving we are all connected and life is an endless river that never stops pulling us into the future.