After fighting in the war against the Mexicans, Major Gerald Mehan retires north of San Jacinto and builds a house with his son. He was a respected lawyer and author of a pamphlet of grievances against Mexico. His daughter, Cecelia, went with her father to Galveston where she was very popular among suitors.  During the spring of 1840, Cecilia and her father ride out to the city again and Mehan notices smoke rising by a creek. He takes his rifle thinking that the fire was made by some troublesome Cherokees. When he approaches the fire, he finds a man with curly black hair who is startled at Mehan’s gun. A second man appears and slices an axe across Mehan’s neck while Mehan’s gun goes off in the face of the first man. The second man closes his eyes in delirium and vomits in the fire. He hears Cecelia scream and asks her who she is. When she does not answer, he frantically tells her he did not mean to kill Mehan and that Mehan had a gun on his brother so he was forced to react. He pulls Cecelia on his horse where they ride away from the crime scene.  Gerald, Cecelia’s brother, comes out in the rain and the man throws Cecelia to the ground before escaping. A neighbor nurses Cecelia while Gerald rides to town to figure out who the killers were.  He returns home, and notices Cecelia has turned very thin and weak. However, she regains her strength during the summer and tries to remember the murderer’s face, with little success. In 1845, Texas is annexed to the United States, and the people of Galveston celebrate. Gerald spots a dark man in the crowd whom he suspects as his father's killer, and introduces himself. He discovers that the man's name is Charles Broussard, and they share their personal information but feel tension. Charles makes his way to Mehan’s house the next day, and meets Cecelia. After Charles buys a house near the Mehans’, he and Gerald grow very close to each other. After getting closer, Charles tells Gerald that he wants to marry Cecelia.  Cecelia agrees, despite the fact that she has figured out that Charles is her father’s murderer, because she is in love with Charles. Over time, Gerald begins to grow miserable with his own family matters, and becomes like a foster son between Cecelia and Charles. Gerald invites Charles to clear some trees with him the next day, and Charles agrees to go. When they meet at the site, they have tense interactions with their axes in hand, and Charles reveals that Cecelia knows he is their father’s murderer. Gerald grows hysterical and hacks away at Charles with his axe, cutting off his finger and eventually his entire arm. He hears Cecelia approach and she cries out in anguish at her dying husband. She attacks Gerald and bites him expressing her disgust at his selfish act of vengeance. Cecelia vows to make sure Gerald lives in misery and mourns her husband while asking him to stay with her.