Gangsters and hoodlums prey upon people's weaknesses for a quick buck in an era that saw few bucks to spare, making criminals of everyday folks in the rural Great Depression. In a place as wild as the West ever was, during the heyday of the badmen and the lawmen, the law is in short supply.

U.S. Marshal Nelson Lane chases a fleeing murder suspect from the frontier of the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming all the way to the big city of El Reno in Oklahoma-out of his element in both places and nearly everywhere in between.

His only help is an Indian rookie deputy sheriff, and she is as wild as any young woman of the time with access to booze and men-not much help to a widower alcoholic struggling in recovery. While she might get Nelson killed unintentionally, a shady sheriff dealing in illicit booze, his henchman warning Nelson to leave, and run-of-the-mill moonshiners just taking care of business are trying to take him out from all sides.