In the desert, at the intersection between a highway and a road (known as “Folger’s Cross”) lies a woman’s ranch. Every two weeks, a man passes by on business and sees the woman offering to help people driving past. While her ranch is comprised of meager buildings and materials, she offers what she can to struggling travelers. Most recently, she has butchered her only cow to feed a hungry group of people. Though the man sees her often, he has never seen her eyes. He speculates that without the cow, she cannot remain at her ranch for much longer. He then speculates that the only thing she has yet to give up is herself.

The man manages to near Folger’s Cross a day early from his business, but the axle on his car has broken on the way up the hill to the intersection. Faced with either climbing the steep hill or waiting for a passing driver, he decides to wait. Finally, a stranger begins walking stiffly towards him from the road he had been driving on. Upon arrival, this pedestrian exclaims to the man that he’s seen many a car accident around the intersection and that he’s rather lucky that this is only his first accident. He offers to take the man up the hill to find something from the house to fix the car, and the man realizes this pedestrian must be the woman’s husband—the titular Folger. Knowing Folger must be coming back to the ranch after a long absence, the man protests any help, saying there’s nothing left for the woman to give away. Folger is puzzled and adamant that his wife, Meg, wouldn’t have given everything away, but eventually the two men ascend the hill leading to the ranch. When Folger tells the man he had been away mining for gold, the man wonders if it is Meg’s, Folger’s, or the desert’s fault that she has been donating their possessions and possibly trying to free herself from the arduous life her husband left her in.

When they reach the ranch, they find the main house dilapidated and in ruins. They walk inside, then encounter a sickly man lying on the floor. Folger bends down and realizes the man has been hit in the head. The car driver wants to leave this place and take the injured man to the next town after using something to fix his vehicle, but he and Folger soon notice a broken chair lying close by. They realize the woman must have hit this stranger and fled. Enraged, Folger attacks the injured man, knowing he must have assaulted his wife. Outside, the Folger and the driver find the injured man’s truck, and the worried husband suggests they take it to catch up with his wife, then find the driver something to fix his car at the next village. As the driver drives, Folger admires his wife’s strength, and the driver comments that it’s almost primitive. Later, they see her disappearing down a hill and know they will overtake her.