In the 50's, the drifter Clay Hewitt arrives in a small town in the countryside of Kansas and befriends the locals Kitty, Earl and his girlfriend Patsy after punching their friend Joel Carter in a bar. Clay asks for a job to raise money to go to California, and Earl drives him to the ranch of the widow Delilah Ashford Potts to work with him in the slaughterhouse. Mrs. Potts is an alcoholic and promiscuous woman and hires Clay and let him stay in the barn. When Clay meets her son Joseph "Flyboy" Potts, he learns that he has just returned from a mental institution after eight years and he does not speak a word to anybody. Further, his only friend is a bull called Jim that belonged to his father. Clay falls in love with Kitty and gets close to Flyboy that becomes his friend and slowly changes his behavior. When Clays decides to leave the town, he discloses a dark secret to Kitty. Meanwhile Flyboy's change of attitude unleashes a series of evil events and revelations from Mrs. Potts.