Delta County is a staid Southern community caught between the old traditions and a rapidly changing way of life. For teenagers Terry Nicholas, his sister McCain, and Joe Ed, the boy from the wrong side of the tracks that she's attracted to, the old traditions have little meaning in their lives. Their elders, struggling to preserve values of an older day, have personal problems that are sometimes overwhelming, such as the one facing John McCain Jr., an alcoholic whose wife Kate is having a hidden and torrid romance that sets her husband off on a vengeance-seeking spree.