Three lives and two cultures converge in this epic tale of power and passion set against the backdrop of the Mexican revolution. A spinster schoolteacher rebelling against her passionless existence, Harriet Winslow (Jane Fonda) goes to Mexico to teach on a vast hacienda, where she is kidnapped by Tomas Arroyo (Jimmy Smits), a general in Pancho Villa's revolutionary army. They are in turn befriended by the old gringo, brilliant American expat writer and muckraker Ambrose Bierce (Gregory Peck). Aware he is dying, Bierce keeps his identity, and his prognosis, a secret. Harriet is intrigued by both men, as they are to her. When Harriet learns Bierce's true identity-a writer whose work she has loved and respected for years-she is singlemindedly determined to fulfill his dying wish.