Leeland Lee is the youngest of six children. His family moved to Unique, Iowa from Cora, Wyoming in the 1950s when his mother inherited a small dog-bone ranch. On the ranch, they raise sheep, chickens and hogs. The children’s father is an angry man and they avoid him, when possible. When Leeland turns 17, he marries Lori Bovee and they drop out of school together and get pregnant. His mother disapproves and eventually Leeland and Lori leave the ranch together. 

He takes a job pumping gas at Egge’s Service Station, which stands at the junction of a country road and Highway 16, which leads to Yellowstone. He buys Lori’s fathers old truck from him and repairs it. When the federal highway program puts in a new interstate 40 miles to the south, overnight the tourist business in Unique falls flat and the station closes. 

Leeland joins the army’s motor pool, and he is stationed in Germany for six years. When he comes back to Wyoming, he is moodier and works on a snow fence crew during the spring and summer months. Then, he moves Lori and his two young children to Casper where he drives oil trucks and they live in a trailer house on Poison Spider Road between two feuding neighbors. They give birth to another baby girl, but when Leeland has trouble getting along with his boss they are forced to move back to Unique and he makes up with his mother. 

Back in Unique, they set up a ranch supply store in the old service station building. The business is not as popular as they expected and when they lose 112 hogs in the winter freeze, they go bankrupt. Leeland goes to work for a construction crew and is always out of town, but when Lori gets pregnant he quits his job and takes another at Tongue River Meat Locker and Processing, which he excels at and enjoys. After talking with his boss, he and Lori sign a 10 year lease on the meat locker operation and after his oldest son graduates high school, the boy joins the army for six years. 

When the recession hits, small ranches do their own meat processing and Leeland’s business goes bankrupt. The family moves to Thermopolis, Wyoming where Leeland finds a temporary job at a meat locker. A hunter from Des Moines tips him $100. During the winter, Lori works in the school cafeteria while Leeland, who is out of work, stays home and quiets the baby with spoonfuls of beer. In the spring, they move back to Unique and Leeland tries truck driving again, traveling to Texas, Alaska, Montreal and Corpus Christi. Meanwhile, Lori works in the kitchen of a restaurant and one night, while Leeland is away on a work drive, she drives her sick baby to the hospital on icy roads, and after he survives she starts a medical emergency response group in Unique. 

Eventually, Leeland quits truck driving and becomes a volunteer firefighter. In a bad February fire, two children die from a family related to Lori’s. Lori’s co-worker’s cousin donates an old ambulance to the Unique Rescue squad. When Leeland’s father dies, they find that the hog business is deeply in debt and the ranch is sold to pay off some of the owed money. Leeland resumes truck driving while his mother watches TV all day. 

Leeland and Lori’s youngest daughter takes up babysitting and one night her employer sexually assaults her. Her mother tells her to not say anything because the man is Leeland’s friend. Leeland quits driving again and he and Lori rent out a gas station and start another convenience store. Their oldest son is discharged from the service for drugs and when he comes home to work as a ranch hand his eyes are always red. Leeland takes up truck driving again, but things take a turn for the worst when he hurts his back, his mother dies, and Lori is diagnosed with breast cancer and becomes pregnant again. The oldest son quits his job and runs off to Phoenix with a friend and Lori gets an abortion before growing gravely ill and dying. Their two daughters have since married and they take in Leeland’s youngest son. 

Two years after Lori died, Leeland is hired in a cafe as a cook. He is surprisingly good at cooking and when the oldest son comes back home they plan to convert the old gas station into a motorcycle repair shop and steak house.