Gamed one too many times by a conscionless "romeo," is enough for artist Raleigh Leary, mourning her father's recent demise, evicted from their home, and shut of her rented booth at a Portland hotel exhibit too full of cheap knockoffs for her liking; she has "had it".
All the local curio shops or cafes willing to sell her work in her Oregon farm town of Killibuck she has exhausted. The big city must surely offer better opportunities. She sets out to find a new place to live and create. But just before she leaves, in stubborn defiance of whoever manages Providence, she torches all her showcase works, just as sheriff's deputies, the county fire department and the tax department's locksmith arrive.
Her fine paid, she embarks. However, when her old Mustang quits on her trip over the mountains and a state cop pulls in behind her, her frustration detonates. She dodges him to race for the Marillius River, beside which she's lived and cared for her father during his last years. Now she sees it as the best end for her fraught life. Whether deliberately, or bumped in by a pair of cavorting German shepherds, she joins the autumn flood waters. Still, the Creative Powers have a thing to say about one of their postulants giving up. They send the dogs' owner to help rescue and revive her. By the auspices of a former first responder, Gus Clast, a drama of mistrust, subterfuge and love begins with a rare red diamond as witness to its mistress's travails.