Oil is king of East Texas during the darkest years of the Great Depression, and maverick oil man Jack Stoddard moves his wife and three daughters from town to town searching for work, and the gambling joints and race tracks he loves. The family adapts as best they can, but when Elizabeth and her girls are left alone to confront hard times, they return to the abandoned family farm to eke out a precarious living. In desperation, they place their hopes on a wildcat oil well that eats up what little they have left - and on the back of Jack's one true legacy, a dangerous racehorse named Smoky Joe.