Juan and Epitacio are having a drink after their shift at the mining company they now work for in Arizona. As the night goes on, Epitacio loses both of their paychecks and then disappears completely. Juan decides to pretend he is two different people so that he can work both day and night shifts. On the night shift, he runs into a guy named Tomás who was at the bar the night Epitacio lost all their money. Tomás proposes that they steal some ore and sell it to an American engineer he knows. They do, and they get caught because the engineer set them up. Juan and Tomás are thrown into jail where they are expected to deliver sexual favors to the other inmates in return for protection. Before Juan is forced to participate, someone knocks down one of the jail walls, and the inmates scatter as fast as possible. Juan runs but is caught, beaten, and returned to prison.

After a while his family finds out what happened, and they have an old rich Mexican man bring them to visit Juan. The old man asks to speak to Juan alone. When they are in privacy, the old man asks Juan to admit to a murder his son committed in exchange for a large sum of cash that his mother could then use to survive.