Cotton Eye Joe is a rangy, weather-browned old man whose coat hangs off him like a tent over fence rails. He moves with a forward hitch, as if forever leaning into a wind only he can feel, then changes direction with startling, economical speed. His breath whistles through his nose on the inhale and rasps at the back of his throat on the exhale; when startled, the whistle stops dead and he holds his breath long enough to make everyone else notice. He grooms with almost ceremonial care: his white mustache is waxed into two stiff points, his hair is combed flat beneath his hat, and his boots are polished despite their cracked leather. Unexpectedly, he keeps a tiny paper windmill tucked into his hatband and turns it with a puff of breath when waiting.

Joe is both hospitable and hard to persuade: he will feed a stranger before asking their name, then refuse a request until he has checked every risk himself. In a crisis he becomes brisk, decisive, and unexpectedly funny; during quiet hours he is sentimental about ordinary comforts but dismissive of praise. He wants people to be self-reliant, yet keeps putting himself between them and danger.

Joe was born in a river hamlet that no longer appears on maps. He spent his youth hauling freight, mending fences, and guiding people across dangerous roads, earning the name Cotton Eye for his pale, steady gaze and the habit of watching a speaker's hands instead of their face. In his thirties, a spring flood swept through the hamlet while he was away escorting a caravan. He returned to find his wife, Nella, alive but many neighbors gone, and learned that the ferryman had ignored Joe's warning about the rotten upstream sluice. Joe could have blamed the ferryman publicly and won a crowd; instead, he helped the man rebuild, then spent years making sure no one else had to trust a single crossing. That choice made Joe a patient advocate and a terrible keeper of grudges. Now he maintains a wayhouse and guides travelers through the flooded lowlands. His wife Nella still lives there, sharp-minded and increasingly tired of his habit of leaving whenever the river rises. A young courier, Kett, has been asking Joe to teach him the old routes, while the local reeve wants Joe to sell the wayhouse land for a new toll road. Joe is trying to keep the route open without turning the place into another disaster waiting to happen.