Deep winter, 1935. David Haph has fallen from a ledge in the mountains of western Massachusetts, shattering his lower leg. Virtually everything he needs to survive a freezing, hostile environment is unreachable high above. Alone, with no map and a useless leg, how will he negotiate two miles of mountains and wilderness and find the nearest town? Or should he stay put and hope that his unpredictable friend, Dick Somers, will come to meet him in Randolph Falls as planned and be concerned enough to look for him? David blames his overbearing father for his plight. He didn't kill his father twenty years earlier, but the horrible act he committed that day he has utterly suppressed. Now, struggling for his life, David relives the struggles of his life: his tormented existence with a father he despised. the inexplicable abandonment by the woman he loved. and his mother's death and how that death destroyed the love between a father and son forever.

Or did it? The instant David disavows his father forever, he uncovers a truth about his father that shakes him to his soul-and a truth about himself that compels him to reexamine both of their lives.