A determined young woman from southern Ohio is handed her ticket out of a dying industrial town when she's accepted to college. To pay her way, she joins her brother on a dangerous scrap metal crew which steals from the once-thriving factories at night, then mans the scrapyard during the day. With her goal in sight, Ruth discovers that the ultimate cost for an education for a girl like her may be more than she bargained for, finding herself torn between a promising future and the family she would leave behind.