A ranch in Wyoming is called the Coffeepot. There was recently a blizzard that covered the land, killing some livestock and crops. However, it began melting and the bodies of livestock emerged and floods became a threat. The weather becomes wild with tornadoes, floods, storms, and blizzards occurring. The man who owns this ranch, Car Scope, who is forty years old, talks about this with his neighbor, Sutton Muddyman. Scrope lives on the ranch for his entire life. 

As a kid, he develops an odd obsession with the ranch. His older brother Train died mysteriously in their bathroom and no one talked about it afterward. He disappoints his father by not becoming an insurance man or a banker. His father dies and his mother wonders if his father talked to him about Train. 

Scrope has an ex-wife called Jeri. The Coffeepot ranch is watered by Bad Girl Creek. Mrs. Freeze’s trailer is eighty yards west of Car’s ranch. No one really knows where Mr. Freeze is. For twenty years, Mrs. Freeze was the Coffepot’s foreman. Car’s rival is John Wrench. 

South of the Coffeepot is another ranch called Box Hammerhandle where Inez and Sutton Muddyman live. They have a daughter who lives in Oregon. Inez is always riding a horse. 

Car calls Jeri, starting a fight about them not quitting on their relationship and pursuit of children. Jeri argues back. He threatens to shoot her if she doesn’t get back to him. She tells him to leave him alone. Jeri had cheated on Car with John Wrench and then moved to South Dakota. After the conversation ends, he drunkenly drives to the Wrench ranch and shoots bullets into Wrench’s truck. 

Car knows Inez helped Jeri go to South Dakota and he is also mad at her for it. 

A few people from California drifted into the ranch country including Henry Batts and his car-saleswoman wife Sonia. Batts is obsessed with the end of the world and eschatological things. He is sets up a spur-making business in the town, which is called Signal. 

Scrope remembers the day he walked in on his wife cheating on him. Car had cheated before and wanted to make up with Jeri. Jeri did not want to make up. They go on a drive in the truck to talk and get in a horrible accident. They both survive and recover. Jeri moves to South Dakota. 

Sutton Muddyman buys a pair of Spurs from Batts, for his wife Inez. The spurs have engravings of the Hale-Bop comet. THey cost three hundred dollars. Inez wears them but doesn't seem to be incredibly impressed with them. Sutton worries about her finding out how much he spent on them. 

One day Inez, Car, and Mrs. Freeze have coffee at Car’s place. They talk about the town and the people and Inez’s new spurs. Car is in a lot of pain with migraines and age. He has an aspirin addiction. His house is a dump.  Inez and Car are alone after a while. Car tries to make sexual advances on Inez, all of which are unwanted. Inez goes home. Over time, Car continues to sexually harass Inez.. Inez eventually tries to tell her husband. Her husband, however, is preoccupied with trying to figure out what is killing his sheep. He decides to go talk to Car about it, completely dismissing what is bothering his wife. 

One night, Inez gets a phone call from some women who are lost and fear wolves are around. She rides out on her horse to go get them. She brings gun in case she sees Car, not wolves.

The women make of safe, however, Inez is attacked by  the wolf while rising her house. She is killed. Sutton, her husband, kills her horse and moves to Oregon. He auctions of all of their belongings

Frank Fane, a science fiction actor from Texas, buys the ranch and also brings along with him some Texans. He hires people to run it. He goes to the bar to socialize with the locals. Mrs. Freeze is there, wearing Inez’s spurs Mrs. Freeze, John Rench, the barowner, and another gentlemen get into a tense conversation about the spurs, Mrs. Freeze act of getting the spurs, and the interactions of the townspeople. 

Car and Mrs. Freeze are driving in the truck. They talk about Sutton and how Car had it bad for Inez. At the ranch, they see Cody Joe Bibby, one of the ranchhands who has severe brain damage, looking troubled. Mrs. Freeze takes him home. When she returns with alcoholic drinks for her and Car, they worry about the lack of help and oncoming weather. Later while working, Car cuts his hands on barbwire. Car tries to make a sexual advance on Mrs. Freeze. She quits. Car says he fires her. 

Mrs. Freeze tries to get a job on Fane’s ranch. He is hesitant because she is a woman. He says he will make up a job for her if he can have her spurs. She agrees. Another day, Car makes anoth advance on Mrs. Freeze, and then throws a shovel at her. 

The snow begins to melt and Car is drinking heavily. He needs helps. Haul Smith, one of the texans who came with Frane, and Car accepts his help. Smith asks Mrs. Freeze if she has any messages for Car. 

He then goes to Car’s. Car had been calling repeatedly looking for Smith who stopped by Fane’s ranch to see Mrs. Freeze. A bunch of the texans, Fane, Mrs. Freeze, and Smith all go to see if they can find Smith as there must be flooding. 

They found Smith’s body when the current subsided some time later. 

Fane sold his ranch to a breakfast mogul who wants to turn the ranch into a nature site. At a bar, Mrs. Freeze is drinking when a guy called Old Jailbird Benny joins her. He shares that he has her old job working for Car on his ranch now. The guy tells her that Car doesn’t do much except complain about a headache, eat, and watch the water. They wonder what he will do with himself when the cold weather comes. 

Mrs. Freeze will likely become a cook at the new ranch. She asks for another drink and she knows that at least she, unlike car, has something to hold onto.