Santiago is an aging, down-on-his-luck, Cuban fisherman who, after catching nothing for nearly 3 months, hooks a huge Marlin and struggles to land it far out in the Gulf Stream.

After dealing with the Shut in the Balkans, Kara Ben-Nemsi ('Karl the German') receives a firman (precious passport) from the padishah (Ottoman sultan) before he continues his travels through Kurdistan. Achmed El Corda, the son of Halef's Hadedhin Beduin tribe's sheik Mohammed Emin, has been captured by the machredsh (Turkish governor) of Mossul for resisting water seizure by his Turkish troops. Kara takes charge of the rescue.

During the last months of the Civil War, Joe's brother is killed unjustly by Clifford, a captain in the Northen army. Joe decides to join a group of Southerners determined to resist till the end. Joe is considered an outlaw and a reward is posted for his capture. When the war ends, Joe returns to the farm where he used to work only to find Christine, the owner's daughter and his sweetheart, engaged to the hated Captain Clifford.

When elderly pensioner Umberto Domenico Ferrari returns to his boarding house from a protest calling for a hike in old-age pensions, his landlady demands her 15,000-lire rent by the end of the month or he and his small dog will be turned out onto the street. Unable to get the money in time, Umberto fakes illness to get sent to a hospital, giving his beloved dog to the landlady's pregnant and abandoned maid for temporary safekeeping.

A fading southern belle moves in with her sister in New Orleans where her ferocious brother-in-law takes stabs at her sanity.