In which a solitary woodsman named Jo Portugais rescues a grievously injured stranger from the river and tends to him with quiet devotion in a remote mountain hut, where time passes slowly and memory falters like a distant light. When the stranger, Charley Steele, finally awakens to the weight of lost months and altered lives, he faces the harsh dawn of a world that has moved on without him, and the gentle yet uneasy companionship of his rescuer.