After the American Civil War, Lon Cordeen is demobilized from the Confederate Army and returns home to Texas. During the war years, Lon missed his family dearly and is eager to re-unite with his parents, brothers and sisters. However, Lon doesn’t know that things have changed for worse in Texas and within his family, since the end of the war. Texas has been left powerless since the loss of war by the Confederacy. The state has seen a great influx of newcomers from the North who are in search for work or business opportunities in the South. Many Yankee merchants have set-up shop in Texas but many carpetbaggers and land-grabbers have also arrived in Texas. Since slavery has been abolished, many former slaves refuse to work the fields and some have already deserted their former owners and masters. All these things turned Lon’s father, Temple Cordeen, into a bitter man bent on revenge. He is bitter for losing his fortunes which he used during the war to bankroll the Confederacy and he is bitter for losing the war. Nowadays, Temple Cordeen, still dressed in his Confederate uniform, refuses to accept the war’s outcome, the end of the slavery and the loss of his personal wealth. He is also angry at the influx of newcomers from the North who seem to want to plunder Texas of its riches. He makes his own laws and the weak town sheriff refuses to get involved. When Lon arrives in his hometown by stagecoach, he witnesses a lynching carried out by his father, brothers and their ranch henchmen. The victim is a Yankee, Mr. Wickett, the publisher of a local newspaper and correspondent for a big newspaper from the North. The hanged man leaves behind a beautiful grown daughter. Lon is appalled by the brutality of his own father and brothers. He also falls in-love with Edith Wickett, the lynched newspaperman’s daughter. This creates a rift between himself and his father. His father is happy to see Lon, of course, and he thinks Lon will join the other brothers in becoming a killer in the service of the Cordeen family’s interests. But Lon’s sense of justice prevents him from doing his father’s bidding. Life at the Cordeen ranch is tense between Lon and his father and his brothers who support the patriarch’s way of doing things. To make matters worse, two of Lon’s cousins start a personal feud with him over pride. The last straw for Lon is when his father, displeased with Charley Garvey, a suitor for one of Lon’s sisters, Bess, orders Lon to either kill the man or give him a good beating and run him out of town. Lon not only disregards the old man’s orders but he actually reaches out to Bess and her suitor and encourages them to elope. He also gives them money and offers to run away with them to a new life, a new start, somewhere else, far from Texas. Unfortunately, the Cordeen family patriarch finds out about it and sends his henchmen after them with orders to capture them dead or alive. But Lon manages to kill these hired killers and decides to return to the Cordeen family ranch for a final showdown with his father and brothers. His only allies are Charley Garvey and Hoby Cordeen, Lon’s youngest brother, who would rather take Lon’s side than be a hired goon for his father. After the final shootout, some will survive.