Tall, tough, and headstrong, Shelly Stamper from Peapatch, West Virginia has wanted to be a truck drivin’ cowgirl since she was six: “Out west, in some wild place on the prairie or in the mountains.” But tragedy intervenes and at 17 she’s dancing in a dive bar, getting drunk every night and consorting with every bottom-feeding male loser who comes along. When the dumbest of the lot offers her a shot at her dream, she grabs at it out of desperation. Dump truck driver Deke McConahay knows all about being a cowboy and to prove it he wears a John Wayne belt buckle. Smitten with Shelly and armed with his Winchester and 10 gauge shotgun, he’s hoping they get in “some real tough fixes” where he can “prove up” and show Shelly “what kind of man I am when the chips are down.”

Afraid that the Real West is gone, they soon discover it can be as exciting and unpredictable in 1973 as it was in 1873. Heading for Montana in Deke’s increasingly battered pickup, they are soon caught up in wild exploits with cowboys, Indians, rattlesnakes, blizzards, and grizzly bears. But there is more to Shelly than Deke knows, or even she knows, and when a life-long search draws her into a perilous and terrifying encounter, she has no choice but to face it head on.