The setting: the western frontier of the United States in 1850, an ever-shifting borderland where violence is a day-to-day reality.
The Kid’s family was recently slaughtered at Tanque Verde; he himself was blinded in the attack. Elsie, a young prostitute, looks after him until the Sheriff decides that he is to be adopted—by wealthy landowner Wesley Helleck. Meanwhile, in a nearby army fort, Corporal Quintus Jones languishes in a cell, awaiting his fate. He has been found guilty of desertion, but manages to break out, aided by a Native American with no regard for authority.