When one of the Homesteaders takes revenge on the drunk driver who killed his family, he hides the body in the Viking ship set to be burned during the annual Up-Helly-Aa, expecting the evidence to disappear into the depths of Loch Lonach. Mother Nature decrees otherwise.
Brought before the clan to answer for his crimes, Charles Monroe chooses exile, and the Laird assigns Ginny Forbes and Jim Mackenzie to escort him across the Canadian border. The trip does not go well. Hijacked by an escaped convict, wrecked on the highway in a snow storm, and menaced by hungry gray wolves (among other things), Jim and Ginny find their paths repeatedly barred.
When the Dallas detective assigned to the case catches up with Jim, Ginny must struggle on alone. Unable to escape the tightening police cordon, Charlie sacrifices himself to save a boy in danger of drowning in the icy depths of the Bay of Fundy, leaving Ginny to face the authorities.