A cowboy helps a young runaway learn the meaning of Christmas by telling the boy the story of "A Christmas Carol," changed to the American west.

Robert "Spider" Johnson is stationed in Germany in 1951, where he is "adopted" as a father by an orphaned boy. Spider is a taciturn man, preferring to remain alone to hide the pain of his own orphaned youth. When he encounters an abandoned boy nicknamed Joe Louis, however, Spider feels an emotional bond with the child. He becomes unnerved though, when the boy mistakenly believes that the soldier is his father. Spider leaves town, denying that he has become attached to the orphan. But when Joe hides in the back of Spider's jeep, the soldier must confront his paternal ...