Kurdy and Jeremiah are off to Jeremah's old stomping grounds of Denver to pick up some books at a library. They meet the "librarian", Edgar, and Kurdy stays to help him learn to read and fend off zealots who are convinced that books are the root of all evil. Jeremiah goes to meet his friend Red (from The Long Road) and embarks on a journey with his girlfriend Maggie, a wheelchair-bound woman determined to deliver her father's ashes to the remote island where she was raised. Maggie insists the ashes must be dumped in the middle of a river...which can only be reached by a rickety gondola. Meanwhile, the library patrons rally under Kurdy's inspiration to defend Edgar and the library.