SYNOPSIS Approximate running time for Cold Mountain is two hours and 45 minutes, including one 20-minute intermission
ACT I Teague, the leader of the local Home Guard, is hunting down Civil War deserters.
Photo by Ken Howard | The Santa Fe Opera
W.P. Inman, a Confederate soldier, decides to desert and return home to his beloved Ada. On his journey, Inman meets Solomon Veasey, whom he stops from committing murder. Meanwhile, the once-privileged Ada lives a life of deprivation at Black Cove Farm until she meets Ruby, a mountain woman who teaches Ada about farming and surviving.
Inman reencounters Veasey near a river while fleeing the Home Guard, and bargains with him for passage across the water. Fate and weather conspire against the pair, who capsize and drift downriver. The next morning, Lila and her three sisters stumble upon the two men. Lila’s husband drugs Inman and Veasey before giving them up to the Home Guard. The men are put on a chain gang of deserters. Back at the farm, Ruby finds her estranged father, Stobrod, trying to steal food. She wants nothing to do with him, despite his assertions that he has changed. When Teague approaches, Ruby hides her father, but later orders him to stay away. Meanwhile, Inman starts an insurrection, but the guards shoot the entire chain gang and leave. A wounded Inman is the lone survivor. He relives the day he bid Ada farewell, but the memory dissolves to the gruesome reality of war: Inman, chained to six dead men, loses consciousness. 12