A man is driving on Dalton Highway in Alaska, a haul road for trucks that is made of gravel and covered by ice and surrounded by icy snow drifts. The man, who is a trucker, believes that he is an angel on a mission from God. According to the man, angels prefer the cold and can blend in with humans. He has seen many trucks that crash on the highway due to the dangerous conditions. If rigs drive too fast, they can create cracks in the roads and disappear into the sea beneath. The man prefers to be alone, and does not mind that cell phones do not work on the road, because there is nobody that he wishes to speak to. He recalls accidents he has seen, and how he has knelt beside dying drivers and calmed them as the life left their eyes. The man says that drivers see things on the highway, and recalls how he has seen his own dead father. He reveals that chosen individuals become angels after death, while the rest burn. The man says that although he is an angel, he does suffer. A psychiatrist once told him he was projecting, but the man says the psychiatrist did not know who he was dealing with. The man glances at his watch and pulls over. He gets outside with an ice-fishing drill, noting that another rig will be there in ten minutes. He finds a thin patch of ice, then drills into it. Then, he grabs a canvas bag and dumps its contents into the hole. He then fills the opening back up with snow. The other truck passes when the man is back in his own truck. He flips down the visor to block the lights, but he cannot look at himself in the mirror. The man makes his way to a town called Deadhorse, which is at the end of the highway. He says it is a soulless place without even a church, and its inhabitants should die for their sins. He books a room at the only hotel in town. He dreams of cutting a hole in the ice and slipping beneath. He bemoans how people just take and take like his family did, and how people are all the same on every truck route across the country. He then discusses how he returns them to the sea to restore order and balance. He recalls giving a man a ride the previous week on the way to Deadhorse. He could tell that the man was someone who hurt others even though he was polite. He says it was the same as San Diego and Tulsa, and that he gets people talking while they drink coffee so he can write down the details later. He says that all 361 of them were narcissists and bullies. The lights go out in the mans room, and he stumbles against the dresser and shatters his mirror. The generator starts back up, and he sees elements of his family in his face in the shards of the mirror. He weeps, and understands that he is guilty and damned and no better than anyone else. He leaves the hotel in the morning and goes to a diner, where a woman asks him for a ride to Fairbanks. He says no, that he is not going all the way through, which confuses her because there is nowhere to stop in between. He gets in his rig and starts driving, noting that the psychiatrist was right. However, the man already cut out the psychiatrist's tongue the last time he saw him. The man starts speeding on the highway, and sees his family outside, including his brother with a sawed neck that was the man's own doing. His truck starts to break the ice, and he lowers the windows as he slips into the sea. The images of all the people he has killed move towards him and tear at him as he looks up to the ice.