John Grady Cole and Billy Parham work together on a cattle ranch south of Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 1952. The ranch faces an uncertain future as the Department of Defense acquires the surrounding land. John Grady falls for a young Mexican woman working in a Juárez brothel, and the consequences are devastating. Brings the two protagonists of the earlier novels together for a final reckoning with the world they have always known.