After eight years in prison aging bank robber Clay Lomax (Gregory Peck) returns to his hometown and while visiting with the local wheelchair-bound barkeep Trooper (Jeff Corey) tries to get info where his double-crossing partner Sam Foley (James Gregory) is hiding out. Clay’s revenge takes a back seat for the moment as a trio of nasty young punks, Bobby Jay (Robert F. Lyons), Pepe (Pepe Serna) and Skeeter (John Chandler), rough up the dumb local whore Alma (Susan Tyrrell) and take her along with them when the psycho leader of the gang Bobby Jay kills Trooper because he told them to stop picking on Alma. Before Trooper dies he lets on that Foley is at Gun Hill. In the meantime a six-year-old waif named Decky (Dawn Lyn) is delivered to him by the railroad brakeman (Paul Fix) and there’s a note pinned to her saying her dead mommy, an old friend of Clay’s, wants him to take care of her (presumably he’s her father, except he would have been in prison). When Clay can’t get anyone in town to care for the feisty little girl, he takes her with him on his revenge mission. On the trail they are followed by the gang of three, and when Clay overcomes them he finds out Foley hired them to keep an eye on him.