In 1952, John Grady Cole and Billy Parham work on a cattle ranch in New Mexico, near the cities of Alamogordo, El Paso, and Ciudad Juarez. They visit a brothel in Juarez one stormy evening with their colleague Troy. While deciding which sex worker to hire, the men sip alcohol and share memories. John Grady declines the women’s attentions until he spots a young teenage girl. Despite the other men urging him to speak to her, John Grady refuses. The men leave the brothel and walk through the rain to a restaurant. After dinner, they return over the border into Texas and the ranch house where they work as cowboys.

The next day, John Grady wakes before dawn. He tends to the horses and then rouses Billy, who reluctantly leaves his bed and eats breakfast with the other cowboys. After eating, the men take a truck out onto the ranch. At lunchtime, they talk about the rumors of the military buying the ranch. The elderly Mac, who owns the ranch, changed after the death of his daughter. Billy was romantically interested in Mac’s daughter and stayed on at the ranch even after she got sick and died in her late thirties.