Shenandoah is a man who has lost his memory. In search of his own history and identity he travels around the country. 

In Galveston Shenandoah gets a job as a stevedore boss and becomes friends with Phil Bartlett who admires his work. A hotel owner, who seems to be involved with the murder of Shenandoah's father, recognizes him and hires a killer, Del Hillman. The killer enters town, heads for the hotel, goes straight for the hotel owner, Bancroft, and talks shortly but very directly about his job. Besides the obvious behavior of the hotel owner, he sees in which condition his employers are: This one is afraid- he overpaid. The name of the person to kill? Shenandoah. "The name has something to it" he comments. 

Hillman comes to Shnandoah's working place right in the moment when a struggle goes on. The men unloading a shipment quarrel and Shenandoah tries to make them work. The struggle is watched by Phil and Hillman and Hillman prevents Phil to intervene. When one of the workers wants to attack Shenandoah from the back with a knife, Hillman throws Shenandoah his gun – who defends himself and thanks Hillman. Later – Shenandoah is inspecting the ship – Hillman prepares to do his job and tries to strangle him. The fight is lost for Hillman. He's brought to the doctor's place and Shenandoah hopes to find out from him why he was hired, to bring light into his past. To prevent exactly that Bancroft tries to kill Hillman. Phil and Shenandoah enter the room and struggle with Bancroft, who's killed in the fight, but too late to save Hillman, he's dying without being able to fulfill his committment - to kill Shenandoah.