Mean Joe Buchanan has sexually abused his daughter, Marylee, for years, and as president of Pittston Coal, he's treated young Tyrone and all the other miners horribly as well. Tyrone and Marylee meet, for the first time, in a bar. They each think that, in separate incidents during the day, they killed Buchanan. But this man never dies. They quickly fall in love. Tyrone confesses to being a descendant of Daniel Boone, and Marylee reveals she's related to Betsy Ross. So with Joe and his boys on their heels, they flee across the country in search of knowledge of their ancestors and of "an America that used to be." But when they arrive at Boone's Carson City house exactly at the same time as Joe and his boys, all seems lost until a mysterious stranger points to a tree outside whose roots might lead them deep into the past...perhaps to a place where Daniel and Betsy are waiting for them. With Buchanan still on their heels, Marylee and Tyrone take the plunge in this (award-winning) dark, hysterical and very tender comedy.