Horace Hopper is ashamed of his half-Paiute, half-Irish heritage. He's spent most of his life on a Nevada sheep ranch after the Reeses took him in. They've treated him like a son, intending to leave the ranch in his hands. Determined to prove his worth as a championship boxer, Horaces changes the way he eats, trains, and thinks. Reinventing himself as Hector Hildago, a scrappy Mexican boxer, he heads to Tucson and begins training and entering fights. But he can't change who he is ... or outrun his destiny.