The action of the film takes place in the postwar years. The train with special prisoners arrives at the remotest station Verikha, hopelessly lost in snowdrifts. Taking advantage of the snowstorm one of the prisoners, Kiril Poletaev, escaped from under escort. Working his way through winter forest, practically frozen and weakened, Kiril reaches his native village... The characters of the film separate into two opposing teams. Some people who knew Poletaev before his arrest are faced with the problem of the moral choice whether to die or abandon simple human values: love, mercy and respect for each other. Other people fulfilling their duty really began hunting for Kiril… Old woman Anna Zakharovna, Shurka and Kuzmich, the head, save Poletaev but suffer themselves. But the paradox is that Kiril who has been saved from “the people-wolves” runs into a real pack of wolves and now nobody can help him.