It is 1862. With his older brothers fighting in the war, Wyatt Earp is left to manage the family's Iowa farm under his father's iron rule. These years of labor produce in him an ambition to seek his fortunes by his wits rather than by the sweat of his back. The open territory to the west, he knows, offers that opportunity. On his way to California he meets a beguiling Mexican girl, who tells him of the "adobe moon," a rusty-hued orb that reminds a man: If you do not achieve your dreams, you must settle for what you have. Wyatt rejects this idea, but it haunts him nevertheless, as he takes odd jobs, becomes a constable in a small Missouri town, and ultimately sinks into a depression where the line of ethics blur. Fed up with his self-made squalor, he returns to the West for a second chance at a proper life, and in a Kansas cattle town he comes face to face with his salvation...and his destiny as a lawman with his own iron rule.