一个十岁的男孩在阿拉巴马州的旷野上长大,他的生存主义者父亲突然过世后,男孩必须学会如何在这个现代世界中建立一个属于自己的家……Moon Blake is raised by his loving but government-paranoid father Oliver in a hidden cave in the Alabama forests. Oliver dies from a leg wound he refuses to have medically treated, so Moon is told to move away, alone, and start a new home in the Alaskan wild-lands. Constable Sanders, however - the mean local cop - finds the boy with his father's guns, abuses him and has him locked away till majority age for 'assault' within Mr. Gene's grim Pinson home for boys. Moon soon makes friends with shy, sickly Kit and apparent bully Hal, then sets up a mass escape, on which only the trio actually follows through. Sanders fails to catch them, but the unforgiving elements reshuffle the cards dramatically. An uncle is meanwhile found.