Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Ira Stone, walks away from his profession and moves to Walnut Creek, North Carolina, the setting of his fondest childhood memories. In retirement, he hopes to affect the world in a passive, exemplary manner, rather than through the forceful rhetoric he is known for as a war correspondent. Ira's peaceful aspirations are challenged by the arrival of Blue Ridge Energy Corporation, a company with plans that threaten to turn Walnut Creek into an industrial zone. Concurrently, he's introduced to Backbone Mountain Militia, a secretive, citizen army that stands in opposition to this corporate incursion. The journalist resists becoming involved in the conflict, but as trouble wells up around him, Ira comes to believe that fate has drawn him back to Walnut Creek to participate in a fight that he long envisaged, and one he has been preparing for his entire life.