Ward, an aging ex-military-pilot-turned-hobby-farmer, sits in his own kitchen, helping his wife Irene (also a farmer) peel and cut buffalo tongues for cooking. While doing so, he tries to troubleshoot the narrator's tractor problems. Irene worries aloud over her sister's recent involvement with a doomsday cult in Montana. The unnamed narrator, a friend of Irene and Ward's, wonders what spices Irene is using.

The narrator mentions the immense troubles that have overrun Irene and Ward's farm in the past couple months, describes the slow death of the once-lush flora and fauna that surround Irene and Ward's farm in the Pacific Northwest, and explains that the buffalo tongues are from two buffalo that Irene and Ward acquired from Irene's younger sister (Jenna's) husband, Leland.

The story setting moves into the past. Leland explains to Ward that he wants to get rid of the buffalo before he and Jenna move to Montana. Leland worries aloud about the recently escaped herd of buffalo from the Kalispel, an "entrepreneurial tribe" whose escaped buffalo are notoriously destructive and aggressive towards nearby farmers. Leland's own unruly buffalo have also recently escaped. Ward and the narrator help Leland capture his buffalo in a trailer.

Over the next three months that Ward owns the buffalo, the farm suffers drought and the state is subsumed by massive wildfires. The buffalo remain aggressive and hostile. Irene complains about their ominous energy, but Ward grows fond of them. Meanwhile, the Kalispel buffalo are spotted disappearing into wildfire smoke. Later on, four of their charred carcasses are discovered.

Ward travels to Montana to check on Jenna and Leland, who have joined a cult that lives in an underground complex built to defend against potential nuclear attacks. Ward struggles to square his attachment to a simpler past with the threat of advancing technology.

When Ward returns, he spots his two buffalo standing, escaped, outside their enclosure. He shoots and kills them, and becomes emotional recounting the memory to the narrator.

The setting returns to Ward and Irene's kitchen, where Irene has finished frying the buffalo tongues. Ward diagnoses the narrator's tractor's ailment and laments the unfixability of certain problems. The narrator finally realizes that the spice he was trying to identify was anise.