On a moonless Texas night in 1895, an ambitious young landowner loses his wife during the birth of their fourth child. From an early age the boy proves so talented on horseback that his father has him ride in acreage-staked races against the neighbors. But Karel is haunted by thoughts of the mother he never knew and the bloodshot blame in his father's eyes, and marked by the yoke he and his brothers must wear to plow the fields.