It is the early 1900's in rural Mississippi along Cohay Creek, where people are scarce and stately virgin pine timber is plentiful. Caleb Smitherlin, a talented blacksmith, has a wife dying of cancer and a teenage son who tries every way possible to please his critical father. Caleb is torn. On the one hand, he loves Mathilda with every bone in his body, but on the other, he needs the company of another woman.The Gypsies he allows to camp on his land...