After tragedy strikes and he loses his mother to cancer, young Benjamin Riley is left in a hard place that would be the downfall of most boys his age.His father is sick and has been drinking, drinking a lot. With the bank taking their house and car, the two hit bottom and begin a long, slow walk out along the one-lane gravel road leading west to a shack along a dry river in Kern County, where Riley will be forced to steal from a local store and investigate the garbage behind a nearby burger joint just for something to eat. The shack where he lives is lonely and less than habitable and Benji is left alone where he faces being discovered while his father is off seeking work to support them and starving.A chance meeting with a local girl after stepping off the school bus blossoms into a friendship that will last a lifetime in this tragic story of one boys courage against long odds. Along the way Benjamin Riley will stand his ground with the town wino--Gus Amos--and defend both himself and his friend, Sarah Jean Walker as he comes to terms with death and the harsh truths of growing up in a south valley oil town that doesn