The man counts the ticks on his pants as he marches into the woods with his wife and his mother-in-law, who are marching to spread his father-in-law’s ashes. So far, they have made six stops through the woods in order to spread them. His wife, for the thirteen years they’ve been married, has always been a nature person, and his mother-in-law, seventy-one years of age, has no trouble navigating the harsh terrain of the woods. She recalls aloud how she and her husband were going to build a cabin here.

The man recalls how, eight minutes ago, he saw a trailer that must have been a meth lab. He thinks he saw a person in it. He reminisces about how his father-in-law used to drive his old cars to what he considered the auto graveyard. He thinks about how, earlier, he, his wife, and his mother-in-law saw strange cars parked there on their way into the woods, though they thought nothing of it; they even knocked on the door of a truck, though no one came out.

The man thinks about to how, after his father-in-law died, his mother-in-law was moved to a suburb beyond the Twin Cities, though she still hates living out there in a cabin. Soon enough, however, he gets separated from the others, who are farther ahead, and he runs into two guys. He explains that he’s spreading his father-in-law’s ashes here with his wife and mother-in-law. He notices the young man has a gun. He wishes his father-in-law, a collector of guns, was still here to even the firepower. Eventually, the man slips away, though he notices the two guys following him.

The man confronts the two guys and asks them if they’re heading in the same direction. They put their hands all over him and ask him about the women ahead. Claiming that it’s just guy talk, they ask inappropriate questions about their looks. Eventually, the man realizes that he may die because he saw their trailer earlier. He promises not to peep, but the two guys don’t trust him, thinking that he’ll rat them out. They threaten him with a gun and threaten violence on his wife and mother-in-law too.

The two guys lower the man to the ground, gun rammed in his face. Right before they shoot him, however, two shots ring in the air, causing the two guys to scram. Both guys get killed by the mother-in-law, who still has one of her husband’s guns, while the wife attends to the man and makes sure he’s okay. The both of them tell him not to worry and not to say a thing about what happened. The mother-in-law says that she and the wife will handle everything as long as he heads back to the car and brings it back to them. Walking back there, he wonders what they mean by handle everything.