Gene Rutherford

Will Penny, an aging cowpoke, takes a job on a ranch which requires him to ride the line of the property looking for trespassers or, worse, squatters. He finds that his cabin in the high mountains has been appropriated by a woman whose guide to Oregon has deserted her and her son. Too ashamed to kick mother and child out just as the bitter winter of the mountains sets in, he agrees to share the cabin until the spring thaw. But it isn't just the snow that slowly thaws; the lonely man and woman soon forget their mutual hostility and start developing a deep love for one another.

A veteran street cop and his partner, a robot programmed to be the perfect policeman, are assigned to protect the five-year-old daughter of the widow who witnessed the killing of her police officer husband and now is stalked by the gangster who murdered him.

Anger stemming from being abused as a child drives an alcoholic's daughter to kill as an adult.