Living the rough nomadic life of the Tasmanian fruit pickers, his young mother careless in her role, Will has survived almost by accident. What sustains him is an intuitive inner resource that nurtures him when there is no other. His deep affinity with animals compensates for the lack of human warmth. At six, parent-less, almost feral, he survives in the haphazard custody of old Sam Judd, battling his own demons. One drunken night in a poker game, he loses Will, who is carried off, a thin little human trophy, to a remote mountain shack. Escaping into the bush, he fruitlessly looks for Sam, until he comes across the unconscious body of a young woman who has been attacked by an angry bullock. She is Ariette Rivoire, French tourist and maladroit apprentice bullock driver. The owner of the bullocks, Harold "Hoppy" Hopkins, turning sixty, invites the boy home. Wary at first, Will allows himself to be cared for, slowly warming to gentle caring and demonstrating his unexpected bullock driving skills. Sam is felled by a stroke and is soon dead. Will must make some very adult decisions. While much of what he must face is traumatizing, little by little Will begins to draw on his own inner resilience. His destiny starts to mature and the once lost and bedraggled waif, slowly and surely begins to find himself.