As the small, religious community ruled by the sadistic Brother Joseph Jones braces for a coming ice storm, a battered, beaten Macie Jones hovers between life and death. Cooter James, a former POW, discovers Macie's freezing body and must make a decision: try to save the woman he has found or continue to ignore the happenings in the village below and maintain his hermit like existence. His decision made, Macie lies comatose in Cooter's cabin and discovers...