Tom Harry has a streak of frost in his black pompadour and a bar called the Medicine Lodge, the chief watering hole of the northern Montana town of Gros Ventre. Tom also has a son named Rusty, whose mother deserted them years ago. An odd kind of family, they manage just fine. Until the summer of 1960, when Rusty turns twelve. Change arrives in the person of Proxy, a taxi dancer Tom knew back when, and her beatnik daughter, Francine.