Ross Bodine and Frank Post are cowhands on Walt Buckman's R-Bar-R ranch. Bodine is older and broods a bit about how he will get along when he's too old to cowboy. Post is young and rambunctious and ambitious for a better life than wrangling cows. When one of their fellow cowboys is killed in a corral accident, Post suggests a way into a better life for himself and his friend: robbing a bank. Bodine reluctantly joins in the plan and the two contrive to rob the local bank. They make good their escape initially, but Walt Buckman and his two sons, John and Paul, are incensed at this betrayal by their own trusted employees. John and Paul set out to bring Bodine and Post to justice.
Tired of his job at a ranch owned by Walter Buckman (Karl Malden), Frank Post (Ryan O'Neal) wants to pull a heist, and when his much older coworker, Ross Bodine (William Holden), sees nothing better on the horizon, the cowboys agree to team up for the crime. After filling their pockets with loot from a local bank, Frank and Ross ride toward what they hope is freedom. But the younger Buckmans, Paul (Joe Don Baker) and John (Tom Skerritt), pursue them over the rough land of the Southwest.
