Adrift and desperately needing money to pay for his ailing adoptive father's care, Ubaldo, a bank clerk who's unable to remember his childhood, receives an inheritance that will change his destiny for good. He goes to Cratará, in the heart of the northwest desert, where he'll become the leader of a pack of ruthless bandits, fulfilling the legacy of his biological father - a mythical cangaceiro.

Maria de Déa, Lampião's companion and first woman in the Cangaço, is a fearless young woman who dares to have a voice in a group of outlaws. In a life of escapes and armed disputes, Maria faces a pregnancy and is subdued to the harshest law of the Cangaço: handing over her baby to be raised by someone else. She begins to live between life in the group and the hopeless desire to raise her daughter.