Windham, a reclusive old man, has survived numerous disasters and tragedies before finding his last refuge in the Colorado Mountains. He finds and rescues Max, a brash young businessman caught by a sudden winter storm while on a long distance drive home to resolve a personal crisis. While traveling the high country, Windham reveals an astonishing past life and Max faces a future more devastating than he ever imagined. The story begins in Zanzibar in 1938 as Windham is beginning a promising career and a relationship with the beautiful and ambitious Schelle. World War II turns their lives upside down and marks the beginning of a long series of tragedies that tests his loyalty and commitment to those he loves as well as his own will to survive. The odyssey that eventually brings him to his mountain refuge unfolds via a series of stories he tells while he and Max are holed up in the luxurious mountain home of Stanley, a star-crossed photo-journalist whose blustering tales serve only to intensify the horrors of Windham's past.