The story of Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, two cowboys who share a small tent while working as herders and camp tenders during a summer spent on a range far above the tree line. They fall into a relationship that at first seems solely sexual but then reveals itself to be something more. Both men marry and have families, but over the course of many years and frequent separations they find their relationship becomes the most important thing in both their lives, and they do anything they can to maintain it. Proulx's description of their bond is beautiful and haunting and often brutal in its portrayal of the hardships, and ultimately the violence, they face.