Tennessee, 1954
Ruby Rose is released from the Tennessee Prison for Women after serving eleven years for treason. Just before her release, the Warden hands Ruby a bus ticket to Sunday’s Corners because it’s “the first stop for every woman that leaves here.” The week before her release, Ruby received a note in the mail that said, “I’m glad to see that soon you’ll be free. Then it’ll be just you and me. Don’t you fret. A plan is set.” Perceiving it as a threat, Ruby buys a knife at the store next door to the bus stop.
Once onboard, Ruby meets a black woman who reminds her of her former cellmate and friend. Also on the bus are two Klan members who become confrontational when Ruby asks the woman to sit with her in the white section. Without saying anything else to her, the two men get off the bus at Sunday’s Corners and walk away. As Ruby watches them disappear, another man approaches her and tells her where to find a place to say. He is Bone McAllister, a man that keeps a turkey on a leash and has secrets of his own.
Before heading to the rent house, a stray dog comes at Ruby “in a sideways sidle.” Ruby takes a liking to the dog, and after she pets it, the dog follows her toward the rent house. This is where Ruby meets her landlady, Hannah Caroline Kittyfish Valentine Marilda Katherine McAllister. Kittyfish is Bone’s sister. After a conversation, Ruby realizes that there is a lot of hostility between brother and sister.
Once Ruby is off his bus, while parked at another stop, the driver realizes he knows Ruby. Rather, he knows her voice. Somehow, it is familiar to him, but he cannot quite place it. Yet, it does cause him to remember the war, his former lieutenant, going ashore at Omaha Beach, and the battle in which he lost his leg.
After dark, a man is hovering in the woods watching the rent house. He watches the house for a few minutes before he picks up the load he brought with him, a body, and continues deeper into the woods. When he reaches a “place of meaning,” he sets the body on fire. Awakened in the night, Ruby is uneasy and cannot go back to sleep. At breakfast, she tells Kittyfish she thinks someone was in the woods. Kittyfish responds by telling her, “I think, maybe, you were dreaming. I don’t know what it’s like where you’re from, but around here, nobody is out late at night.”
Later Bone comes by because “it was important that Ruby think she could trust him.” He offers to show her around. She accepts his invitation, but while she is freshening up, Ruby catches Bone throwing rocks at the dog. Not liking his actions, she decides to take the knife with her because “throwing rocks was not too far removed from hurling insults and spit.”
While walking with the man, Ruby mentions the light to him. Bone tells her, “You know, it’s easy to see things when you’re half asleep.” Ruby decides to let it pass, even though, she’s convinced of what she saw. A while later, the two of them find the woman’s remains. Deciding one of them must go for the sheriff, Ruby tells him she won’t go because “the last time I tried to explain anything to them, I ended up in prison.” After Bone leaves, Ruby decides to take another look at the body. She finds an unburned section on the woman’s arm. It has a tattoo on it, and Ruby realizes the dead woman was a Jew. Feeling pity, Ruby decides to investigate.
Kittyfish’s quilting club is at the house when Ruby gets back. As the women are sewing, one woman’s husband comes by to tell them a body has been found in the woods. An outbreak of false hysteria ensues. The next morning, Ruby heads to the hardware store to buy some clothes. In the store, she is warned by the sales clerk, Sadie, that Sunday’s Corners is not safe for her. Sadie was the person sending Ruby the warning notes. Despite Sadie’s attempts, Ruby goes back to see if she can find anything else about the body. In the woods, she happens upon the two men who were on the bus. Ruby overhears them talking about her and how a Klan leader and a writer helped her get early parole. After listening to them, she decides to follow them to a meeting.
Hurrying back to the house to pack her belongings, Ruby comes across the man who was in the woods watching the house. It turns out to be the Warden. Not knowing his role, Ruby tells him about finding the body and how everyone thinks the woman was murdered. He, on the other hand, informs her that whoever burned the body probably did so after she died so as “to keep vile things from the body and then bury what’s left.” He also lets her know he thinks she was wrongfully convicted and that she can leave Sunday’s Corners.
Once Bone talks to the Warden and learns that Ruby is leaving, he decides he must stop her.
The bus driver finally recognizes Ruby’s voice. He knows she’s in danger and decides he must save her.
Kittyfish hates Bone because she thinks he got his twin brother, Blackwell, killed during the war. The woman believes Blackwell was the closest thing she ever had to her own child.
Bone breaks into the Kittyfish’s house through an old trap door that their father, a moonshiner, built during Prohibition. Thinking him to be a robber, Kittyfish hits Bone in the head with a piece of stove wood. Coming to, Bone tells the woman, “I think you’ve done stove me up.” He confesses to her that he intentionally killed Blackwell. In a fit of rage, Kittyfish kills Bone.
Ruby slips out of the house, intent on following the two Klansmen to find out who the writer is that helped her get out of prison. She is hopeful that it’s Ezekial Proffitt, a friend she was told died during the war. Watching from the shadows, Ruby sees that it is actually Herr Schmidt.
The bus driver catches Ruby outside the store. He whispers to her that the music she played was a comfort to him while he was in the hospital after he lost his leg. She tells him about Herr Schmidt. The bus driver offers to help her leave by driving her to Charleston. He also confides that he’d be pleased to look after the dog and deal with Herr Schmidt.
Ruby leaves Sunday’s Corners determined to get back to Henry, who is still living at the orphanage, because “he was the only person that she loved more than she loved herself.”
