Sheriff Martha Ettinger investigates the suspected murder of a young man retrieved from the Madison River in Montana with a trout fly stuck in his lip.

In Montana's Madison Valley, Sheriff Martha Ettinger and her deputy investigate a horrific scene at the Palisades cliffs: a herd of bison fallen to their deaths, an Indian man among them. Farther up the valley, fly fisherman-detective Sean Stranahan is hired to find a Chippewa Cree woman's old flame -- a search that leads him right to the brink of the buffalo jump.