After fighting in the Civil War, the Hammond brothers of Texas return to Austin and begin to drift apart. While Neal (Rock Hudson) commandeers the family ranch, courts local beauty Sally (Judith Braun) and becomes a marshal, Dan (Robert Ryan) turns to a life of crime and lusts after the wife (Julia Adams) of a prominent magnate (Raymond Burr). Their lives reconverge when Neal must choose between Dan and a group of ranchers terrorized by his brother's gang of cattle rustlers.