Nineteen-year old Juan Morales is a lover but not a fighter. Therefore, when the drunken father of the girl he impregnates tries to gun him down on the footsteps of a tiny mountain chapel ¿ as he is about to marry another, the bride-to-be receives the misdirected bullets and Juan becomes a fugitive of love. From his hamlet in the pine forests of the Oaxacan Sierra Madre in Southern Mexico, he makes the arduous and dangerous escape to El Norte . He settles in the central California city of Bakersfield, where he instinctively continues his reputation as a "Don Juan". Things go well until he decides to move in with a shapely blond waitress of Oklahoma origins to "Improve his English". Blending of the two cultures is sometimes humorous and sometimes not; he likes tacos and she prefers hot dogs. Eventually, the relationship does not go well. Her fits of jealousy, some well founded, often take the couple into the abyss of depression and despair. Ultimately he precipitates the break-up by visiting the salacious and experienced Chonita - truly a fornicator's therapist. Escaping another shooting, he returns to his Oaxacan paradise where he encounters an unexpected supernatural experience.