In late 19th-century New Mexico, Samuel Jones reappears hoping to reconcile with his adult daughter Magdalena "Maggie" Gilkeson. She is unable to forgive him for abandoning the family and leaving her mother to a hard life and early death. This situation changes when renegade Apache Pesh-Chidin, alias El Brujo, and a dozen of his followers (who have left the reservation) pass through the area, ritualistically killing settlers and taking their daughters to be sold into sex slavery in Mexico. Among those captured is Maggie's eldest daughter, Lilly. Maggie's rancher boyfriend Brake Baldwin was among the settlers killed.