Six hired hands on a drunken, playful spree accidentally kill an old man. Unforgiving letter-of-the-law marshal Burt Lancaster follows them home. Lancaster seeks the aid of local sheriff Robert Ryan, but Ryan and the local citizens try to divert Lancaster from his task because the killing was clearly an accident and because they are under the powerful sway of the boss of the hired hands, Lee J. Cobb. Lancaster tries to cut a deal with Cobb, but Cobb's hired hands, believing that it is impossible to reason with the fanatical Lancaster, goad him into a gunfight in which Lancaster kills the ranch foreman. Lancaster will pursue the fleeing felons to an absolute point of no return in which only blood and death can be the victors. Robert Duvall/Sheree North/Richard Jordan/John Hillerman co-star.