In the desperate search for food during a desolate winter, Marak leads his pack of wolves into the cattle country of Wyoming. Lying in wait for them near the town of Elliot Lake is a hunter, hired by a local rancher, Daniels.

The Viccary family is new to Elliot Lake, and thirteen-year-old Ed Viccary is having difficulty adjusting to small-town life - not least because of his conservationist views. When Marak is critically injured by the hunter, it is Ed's father who finds him bleeding in the snow. The local people insist that they turn the wolf over to Daniels, and the Viccarys reluctantly concede. But Ed is appalled, and in the dead of night he frees Marak, who escapes into the wilderness.

Marak is on his own, with every wolf pack trying to drive him away. Eventually, he meets a solitary female, and they begin to carve out their own territory. But Daniels and his hunters are closing in ...