The story centers around Juan Fernandez, the son of a Mexican printer who
had published articles favorable to striking workers in the hydraulic-
power plants of Río Blanco, Veracruz. The workers were locked out, and
federal troops were sent to kill them. Juan escaped the massacre by climbing
over the bodies of the deceased, including those of his mother and father. He
makes his way to El Paso, Texas, where he comes into contact with the Junta
Revolucionaria Mexicana. Adopting the new name of Felipe Rivera, he
volunteers to serve the cause at the office of the Junta, whose personnel
suspect his motives and put him to work doing menial labor. Soon, however,
he is dispatched to Baja California to reestablish connections between Los
Angeles revolutionaries and the peninsula. Exceeding his orders,
he assassinates a federal general and returns to El Paso.
Rivera surprises his colleagues by occasionally disappearing for days or
weeks at a time, then returning with much-needed funds and displaying
fresh injuries apparently caused by fighting. Unknown to them, he has begun
working on the local boxing circuit, first as a sparring partner for experienced
fighters and later moving up to compete in a few bouts of his own. As
the Junta scrambles to finance the revolution, Rivera overhears his superiors
discussing a shipment of guns needed by the front-line fighters. He suddenly
tells them to order the guns and promises to get the $5,000 needed to pay
for them within three weeks.
Rivera pays a visit to Michael Kelly, a boxing promoter who has brought the
promising contender Danny Ward in from New York. Ward's scheduled
opponent has broken his arm and is unable to fight; Rivera offers to take his
place, insisting on a winner-take-all contract once he learns that the prize
money will be more than enough to afford the guns. Ward agrees, but on the
condition that the weigh-in must occur on the morning of the fight instead of
at ringside.
Rivera holds his own against Ward and manages to knock him down several
times, despite the crowd's dislike of Rivera and the referee's active
intercession on Ward's behalf. During the fight, Rivera learns that Kelly has
bet heavily against him and refuses to take a dive even after Kelly offers to
help advance his boxing career. In the seventeenth round, spurred by visions
of vengeance against his parents' killers, he knocks Ward out and wins the
money needed to pay for the guns and to keep the revolution going.
