After burning through his first six-pack of the night, The Narrator decides it’s time to take back some semblance of control in his life. The next morning, he breaks into his ex-wife’s house and steals the taxidermied badger he’d given to her as a token of their marriage.

With the badger back in his control, The Narrator returns to The Lucky Clover, his old haunt in the town of Paradise, a reservation bordertown in western South Dakota. Soon he finds himself entrenched in the town and with the people there, most prominently Nanny, a six-foot redhead and amateur Madam with a penchant for all things illicit.

One night, The Narrator discovers and takes a sizable amount of cocaine, and is marked for death by Ray Kennedy, a man haunted by his own racial background. Broke, and with no other options, The Narrator turns to crime to repay his debt, devising a scheme that involves the betrayal of his new girlfriend, Laura.

 The narrator then turns to crime to repay the debt, only to find his misstep had been counted on. He soon finds violence is the only language spoken in this sparse and hard country he calls home.