"Four friends growing up on the banks of a wild Appalachian river just after World War II discover, almost at the same time, the dangerous, alluring falls and the perils of their own maturing hearts. Seen through the eyes of his childhood friend Arden, football hero Vince falls in love with the new kid, Glen. They have no context for their feelings, and the next few years of high school become a tense, though sometimes funny, artifice of concealment....