West Texas in the years after the Civil War is an uneasy meeting ground of two cultures, one white, the other native American. Elvis Presley portrays Pacer Burton. The son of a white rancher (John McIntire) and his beautiful Kiowa Indian wife (Dolores Del Río). When fighting breaks out between the settlers and natives, Pacer tries to act as a peace maker, but the "flaming star of death" pulls him irrevocably into the deadly violence.