For Tom Dawson and Sam Wilson, life in the northwestern Colorado town of Cottonwood Springs proceeds without any profound awareness or deep concern for a final objective, and certainly with no sense that their personal journeys are destined to deliver them to a strange-sounding town in Mexico known as the City of the Dead. Best friends who served together in Vietnam, the recently widowed Tom and divorced Sam now inhabit each other's life in a ritual of familiar habits and shared history. Tom, a writer since his days as a combat correspondent, tends to nod and observe, while Sam, a Nighthawk who flew in Huey gunships, continues to be in the thick of things, carrying on about conspiracies, dropping culture references, and offering his interpretation of quantum mechanics and karma. When Sam finds himself in a contentious property transaction, both men wind up with their lives turned on end, with each in his own way searching for answers and possible solutions that will provide some sense of closure and certainty. These goals, however, may prove only more elusive late in life and Tom and Sam are in store for adventures they never could have anticipated.