Roaming across the salt flats and skirting the salt lake Richard a geologist working for an oil company hunts for fossils under the spell of Clarissa the local beauty who plans to use her share of their plunder to get out of small dusty Midland for good. A generation earlier a Depression era couple Max and Marie Omo numbly mines for salt along the banks of the briny lake until the emotional terrain of their marriage is suddenly and irrevocably altered. The strange surreal arrival of a runaway circus elephant careening across the sand sets in motion Maries final break from Max and heralds the beginning of her second chance. Consequences reverberate through the years and the dunes when Marie becomes indelibly linked to Richards own second act.