Daphne Bellechère loses everything when the funding for her post-grad program at Vanderbilt University evaporates. Her dream of a PhD, of working in conservation, her subsidized housing for her and her six-year-old daughter. With no other choice, she moves back home to live with her mother and grandmother on the Red River. The same one which lured her in with a baby lamb as a child and nearly swallowed her, leaving her marked, leaving her othered.

Her mother is always working overtime at the soap factory, and her granny is half in the bag by the early afternoon. Her daughter is seeing a baby lamb, just like she did before she fell in. And to make matters worse, an FBI Agent shows up asking questions about Daphne's cousin Stacey.

Stacey lives in an old station wagon. She makes her money chasing storms and dealing drugs. Agent Shakir believes she witnessed -or perpetrated- a double homicide down in New Orleans during hurricane season, and has been evading authorities ever since.

With predators of different sorts closing in from all directions, the Bellechère women can only load their old rifle and lean on each other to make it through.