Nat Love eats dinner with his parents when Rufus Buck and his gang come to their house, guns down Nat’s parents and carves a cross into Nat’s forehead.
Some years later, a grown Love, now an outlaw, kills one of the gang members in revenge. Meanwhile, his partners, sharpshooter Bill Pickett and quick-draw Jim Beckwourth, ambush another gang and steal their haul from a recent bank robbery. The lone survivor tells them that the $50,000 they have stolen belongs to Buck. Love travels to meet his former lover Mary Fields who runs a chain of saloons. Pickett brings news of the heist to Love.
Buck’s gang, led by Trudy Smith and quickdraw Cherokee Bill ambush a train on which Buck is being transported by a group of corrupt soldiers. The soldiers reluctantly release Buck, who orders all of them killed except for the youngest. Buck and his gang return to their home of Redwood, where Trudy has a saloon. The town is now run by Buck’s former associate Wiley Escoe. Although left in charge by Buck, Escoe has used the position for profit at the expense of the town. Buck beats him and orders him to leave town. Buck gathers the townspeople and tells them they will need $50,000 to save the town and proposes a tax to raise that money. He kills a man who objects, but accepts that the townsfolk cannot raise the full amount he needs.
