Half-Apache Pardon Chato (Charles Bronson) finds himself in a bar fight with a bigoted sheriff and kills the man to save his own life. The locals won't accept this defense, though, and angry Civil War veteran Quincey Whitmore (Jack Palance) rounds up a gang of toughs to track down Chato, who is forced to flee the scene. But when the posse finds Chato's family and brutalizes them, the escapee decides it's time to stop running and start taking revenge on the lynch mob.