This story concerns a young man, Doug Malone, seventeen, who quits college, leaves home, and heads to Mexico to escape an alcoholic, abusive father. After an adventurous start, his perky '35 Plymouth perishes near the Mexican border. In addition, he finds himself out of money and decides to return to Oregon. While hitchhiking home, he survives a car accident at night in remote, snow-packed southern Oregon. There, he is kidnapped by two retroverts, but he uses his .22 pistol to escape. All this while, the 1950 Korean War intensifies.Back home, he finds a job then enlists in the USCG when he turns eighteen. The coast guard sends Doug to electronic technician school in Groton, Connecticut. Upon graduation, he volunteers for duty in Korea, but instead, is assigned to an isolated duty loran station on NW Moloka'i, where he finds desolation, a deadly disease, axis deer, attacking sharks, connivers, a great friend, and several unusual events.In Kaunakakai, Moloka'i's only town, conniving escalates, locals become friends, Doug arranges a fishing trip, endears a lovely lady, and flies to the Kalaupapa leper colony on New Year's Eve, 1953. There he meets the true survivors, the lepers!