As a mysterious high plains drifter travels across the wintry North Dakota prairie, he finds a man lying unconscious in the middle of the road and stops to lend a hand.  After defrosting, the man explains that he's on his way to meet his pen-pal girlfriend for the first time, as she's being released from prison.  Desperate for a girlfriend of his own, the drifter sees this as an opportunity to change his lonely existence, and hatches a plan to steal his new companion's identity, forever changing the destinies of all three people.