It is 1975 and 100-year-old Nels has been residing in a Minneapolis nursing home for three years, being tended by, and matching wits with young Brad, his by turns loving and sadistic orderly. Brad is every bit as confused about his own future and death as Nels. His fellow orderly Pipe, 19, a Chippewa Native American, tries to reconcile the wreckage of his family and the lessons of his grandfather through caring for Nels and the abuse of peyote. Nels seems indestructible until one day he becomes convinced Brad killed his roommate. Is Nels unraveling or is it really Brad who has gone off the deep end? And will Pipe bring the kind of solace to Nels that has eluded everyone he knows? Meanwhile, the snow keeps falling.