Archie and Rose McLaverty are a young couple in 1885. Archie has purchased land with a $100 inheritance from the woman who took him in after his parents died. He likes to sing songs. The two are very much in love. Rose becomes pregnant and Archie gets laid off. The couple starts to feel the long haul of marriage. Archie looks for work but finds none nearby so he goes to Cheyenne, a couple days away, where he hears word of a man named Karok who pays well for cowhands but doesn't hire married men. Pretending to be single, Archie gets a job. He returns home and tells Rose that he will be gone for a year. He says he will save every penny and they'll be well-off when he returns. Rose is upset, but realizes how gender norms dictate that he can come and go whereas she has to stay put. Archie says he'll ask Tom Ackler, their neighbor, to check in on Rose; however, Tom isn't home so Archie leaves a note. At home, Rose prematurely gives birth to a stillborn baby. She buries the baby. At Karok's ranch, Archie is worked incredibly hard. An older cowhand named Sink Gartrell takes him under his wing. Archie confesses to Sink that he's married. Sink says Karok will fire Archie if he finds out. One day, Archie is sent out in a blizzard and his horse falls in a sinkhole and he nearly freezes to death. Sink takes care of him as he catches pneumonia. Sink tells Karok Archie is married to convince him to let him take him to a doctor rather than leaving him to die in the ranch. Karok lets them take a horse but not his wagon. They get caught in a stronger blizzard and take shelter in a cabin. The blizzard lasts twelve days and the two freeze. Tom Ackler returns to his home after being gone for a long time and glimpses Archie's signature on his note after throwing the newspaper it was written on into the fire. He goes by Archie and Rose's house to check on them and finds Rose's dead, mutilated body. He presumes she was raped and murdered and mutilated by Utes sometime in the winter. He rides to Rose's hometown to tell her parents, who are disinterested and wrapped up in their own scandal—an old, voyeuristic man who had become obsessed with Rose's employer's mother has died leaving a note about fantasized but false sexual intimacy between the two. They pay Tom no heed. He rides home and buries Rose's body.