Snipe navigates through a ravine of hemlocks after an hour of driving on junky back roads. As he does, he slows down to look at the poor living conditions of the country folk. He is bony with dim, bloodshot eyes and reddish receding hair. Two years ago, he’d left his wife and the city for Catherine and the country. He quit his job three weeks ago and has since taken to playing his guitar at night for money. 

He drives out of the hemlocks into brushy land and he drives up to Eno Twilight’s house. He’d found a note from Eno Twilight that said he’d saw Snipe’s ad about wanting to play with a group and Eno invited him to play country music with his family on Wednesday’s at 7 p.m. Eno’s house is old and broken and there’s a hand-painted sign over the door that reads “God forgives.” The Twilights sat silently on kitchen chairs in a circle around old Eno with their instruments resting on their knees. Eno points Snipe to an empty chair with his fiddle bow and Snipe takes his guitar from its case. 

Eno begins to conduct the group and Snipe joins in but when he slides into a blues run he gets a cold look from Eno. A girl sings with a hard and sad voice and at the conclusion of the piece Snipe introduces himself but they barely look at him and continue on to the next piece without warning. The group is very good and Snipe doesn’t recognize any of the songs they play. When he asks, someone mutters a title before they move on again. At 9 p.m., they conclude and Eno tells him to come back next Wednesday but not to try anything fancy again. 

The group tells him that they don’t perform but just make music in their house for the Lord. In his car, Snipe writes down all the song titles he can remember to look up later and he drives back to his rented house on the lake. Catherine, a thin blond woman, sits in a tan recliner with her eyes closed and she asks him if he got the job. He tells her it’s not really a job but this group is the one that will make them rich. She grows angry and tells him she’s working hard in the kitchen while he plays free music and that she doesn’t want to borrow from her parents again and that he’ll have to cover the next rent this time. They get into a big fight and Snipe leaves with a beer to sit out on the dock where he looks across the lake and wonders how much longer he and Catherine will last. Her parents kept quietly slipping her money and inviting her on trips to South America to study native weaving techniques and never mentioning Snipe. He knows she’ll leave him and he thinks about the Twilights and the songs they write which he thinks will make a great album. He imagines him and the Twilights on stage wearing black costumes with a few sequins and an album cover of them standing in front of the ratty house. 

The rented house Snipe and Catherine are staying in was found by her parents for a reduced rent on the promise that Snipe would clean up the yard. Snipe continues to go to the Twilights’ every Wednesday and each time was just like the first. He tries to form a relationship with them and soften Eno and one day he asks Eno if he ever plays guitar and the man goes to a back room and retrieves a metal guitar with a Hawaiian hula dancer painted on the instrument. Eno tells Snipe that his Uncle Bell gave him the instrument in 1942 and the group uses it when they come up with new songs. Snipe tries to reach out to touch it, but Eno pulls away and hides it in the back room, saying it’s his most-prized possession. 

When he returns, they play “Fried Potatoes” and Snipe feels like a connection has been made between him and the rest of the group. He notices there’s a certain order of songs that’s determined by Nell, the singer, and he begins to play directly to her instead of Eno. He begins to write his own song about the cedars in his yard he’s supposed to be trimming called “I am a Prisoner of Some Green Trees” and he practices it for hours on his own. One night, he shows the group the song and the group begins to sing along, but Eno points his bow at Nell abruptly and she transitions into a different song. 

In late September, the frost begins and Catherine does not come home one night. Snipe knows she must be with Omar, the new owner of the grill where she works. One morning, Catherine slams the door and drives away with Omar and Snipe drives to the Twilights where he finds Nell alone in the kitchen making jelly. Snipe wraps his arms around Nell's waist from behind and carefully gathers up her dress. Later, she says that her family is coming back from the woods and sees that Ruby is hurt. Ruby’s arm is wrapped in Eno’s bloodstained shirt and Eno drags him to the sink where Nell cups his hurt arm. She unwraps his shirt and bandages his arm. Snipe asks a question and Eno suddenly notices his presence. He realizes that he had just walked in on the man alone with his daughter and what they must have been doing. Snipe proclaims his love for Nell and Ruby yells that she is his wife and Eno attacks him. 

Snipe runs from the house, falling down painfully as he climbs into his truck and drives recklessly down the path and fifty miles into the next town where he goes to a bar and drinks scotch. He buys a symphony on tape at the discount drugstore and buys Catherine’s favorite things at the shopping mall for more than $100 with bad checks. He drives home and wins her back easily and they plan to move. They make love and he rests his mouth against the beat of her heart. He thinks about how nice it would be out west on a road that stretches forever.