Winter's Bone opens with the novel's sixteen-year-old protagonist, Ree Dolly, standing on the porch of her family home in the highland region of the Missouri Ozarks. Ree smells the coming winter weather on the air and considers how little firewood they have stacked. Deer carcasses hang to air-dry on the neighbor's lawn, and the scent makes Ree think about the lack of food in the kitchen. Ree's father, a notorious methamphetamine producer, is facing drug trafficking charges and has been missing since he was released on bail from jail. Ree alone looks out for the well-being of herself, her two younger brothers, Sonny and Harold, and her mentally ill mother, Connie.
After sending her brothers to school in dirty socks, Ree receives a visit from the local sheriff, Baskin, who she greets with a hostile familiarity. Baskin lets her know he hasn't been able to touch base with her father, Jessup, in advance of next week's trial. He explains that Jessup signed over the Dolly property when posting bail, so the place will be seized and Ree's family will be turned out on the street if Jessup doesn't show in court.
Determined not to lose the property, Ree sets out to track down her father. Without a vehicle, she trudges through snow to her uncle Teardrop's place. Teardrop, an ex-convict with a severe meth addiction, warns her to stop looking into Jessup's disappearance, even after Ree explains what is at stake. Ree's next target is Thump Milton, the crime boss and head of the local network of drug dealers and producers. His wife, Merab, makes Ree wait in the yard, but Thump refuses to come out and talk to her. Merab warns Ree to stop her inquiries, prompting Ree to shout her displeasure as she leaves. Upon returning home, Ree receives a visit from her neighbor, Blond Milton. He tells her people have been talking about how she needs to shut up regarding Jessup's whereabouts. He brings her to a burned-out crank-cooking house and says Jessup died in the fire. However, Ree sees there are weeds standing chin-high inside the charred shell, meaning the place burned long before Jessup went missing.
Ree continues on her hunt, enlisting the help of her best friend, Gail. With Gail's in-laws' vehicle, the two drive to Reid's Gap and visit April, a schoolteacher Jessup used to date on the side. April says she last saw Jessup at a bar on the state line. He had been with three dangerous-looking men, and Jessup pretended not to know her, presumably to protect her from whoever the men were.
The rest of the week passes with Gail staying at Ree's, and Ree teaching her brothers how to shoot and skin squirrels. One day the bail bondsman, Mike Satterfield, informs Ree that Jessup's court date passed without him turning up, so they have thirty days before the house will be seized. Ree says she believes Jessup must be dead, and the bondsman tells her she'll have to prove his death if she wants to keep the house.
Desperate to hold on to the family home, Ree returns to Thump Milton's. This time, Merab ambushes Ree with a group of other Milton women, beating her bloody and unconscious. Thump and his cronies confront the battered Ree in the barn, reprimanding her for not listening to the warnings and staying out of the matter. Luckily for Ree, Teardrop comes by to collect her.
After making an agreement with Thump that she will be his responsibility, Teardrop drives Ree home. On the way, he snorts crank and monologues about the predicament she has put him in. While he doesn't want to get on the bad side of Thump, he wants to help her find Jessup's body so she can secure the house. He makes a deal with the woozy Ree that he'll help her on the condition that he never learn who exactly killed Jessup, because that knowledge will eat away at him until he is forced to exact his revenge.
A sense of calm pervades the atmosphere as Ree recovers at home from the attack. Local women bring her painkillers that keep her in a hazy state of mind, while Gail bathes her and treats her injuries. One night, an agitated Teardrop wakes up Ree and takes her out in his truck to find Jessup's body. He has been up for days on meth and has two guns with him. The night ends when Baskin pulls him over and Teardrop refuses to get out of the truck. When Baskin has his pistol drawn on Teardrop, Teardrop implies Baskin let leak the information that Jessup had turned against his criminal associates and become a police informer. Teardrop drives away, and Baskin falls to his knees without shooting.
Ree is at home when Merab and her sisters come by with an offer of help: they will bring her to Jessup's body. Although she doesn't trust the women who attacked her, Ree rides in their car with a burlap sack over her head so she won't be able to tell anyone where the body is. They get out and trudge through the snowy woods to a pond and make Ree hack through the ice in the spot where Jessup's body has been submerged. Merab then makes Ree remove both his hands with a chainsaw so she can bring them to the police, who will check them against fingerprints on file and confirm his death. The process nauseates Ree, but she does it.
The next day, Ree calls Baskin and tells him to come collect the hands, claiming that someone threw them on the porch in the night. Baskin doesn't believe her, but neither does he probe for more information. After the death is confirmed, the bail bondsman visits Ree to give her a plastic bag full of bills. He explains that it's her share of the money that an anonymous man posted toward Jessup's bail. Because they don't know who left it, they can't return it to him. While the bondsman speaks, Teardrop overhears him say it was difficult to tell whether the anonymous man was even awake as he handed over the cash. This prompts Teardrop to stand up and walk outside. The bondsman meanwhile compliments Ree's ability to prove her father's death and says if she could drive, he could use someone like her to track down bail-bond cases across the region.
The unexpected windfall brings a sense of security for Ree. However, her pleasure is disrupted once again when the bondsman leaves and Teardrop tells her he knows who killed Jessup. The implication is that the barely awake–seeming man the bondsman spoke of must have been Sleepy John, one of the men who does dirty work for Thump. Teardrop and Ree hug for a long time, as Ree understands that her uncle is going to avenge Jessup's death and become the target of a retaliation himself.
After Teardrop leaves, Ree sits on the porch with her brothers, who ask whether the money means she'll leave the family. Ree says she won't. Instead, she's going to use the money to buy a vehicle.
