Saul Barnard grew up in a family of woodcutters. The woodcutters are scared of the elephants in the forest, but there's one elephant that never seems to threaten Saul. Tired of being exploited by wood buyers, Saul takes a stand and his father chases him away. He goes to work on the wood buyer MacDonald's wood yard, where he gets to know MacDonald's daughter, Kate, and falls in love with her. After a few years he leaves MacDonald and joins the first prospectors in the forest, searching for gold. Millwood becomes a small town with hotels and bars and houses. Kate appears again.

Set against a political backdrop in Africa, the story spanning several years, unfolds around the powerful interaction between two women, their strong sexual allure, and their search to find meaning through it all.