Plot summary

Bank robber Carter "Doc" McCoy is paroled from a Texas state prison, somewhat to his surprise. His wife, Carol, has arranged for his parole by sleeping with the politically well connected but corrupt Jack Benyon. Doc is aware of her actions and it eats at him over the next several days. He also learns Benyon had him sprung to rob a bank of $500,000. Doc wants to use his own men, but Benyon insists that two criminals he knows, Rudy Butler and Frank Jackson, take part and a reluctant Doc agrees. Along with Carol, the three men plot the robbery that involves Rudy and Frank entering the front of the bank to control the crowd, then letting Doc in the back door so he can crack the safe. While Rudy and Frank purchase the necessary supplies, Doc and Carol scope the bank, drawing up a timetable for the robbery based on the arrival of employees. Doc also wants Rudy and Frank to wear bulletproof vests, but Rudy refuses. At this point, Doc does not trust these men but has no choice but to go forward with their plan.On the day of the robbery, explosives are placed underneath an abandoned house on the outskirts of town as a diversion. Frank and Rudy enter the bank and order everyone on the ground, then let Doc in the back. As Doc is removing the money from the vault, the bank guard tries to pull his gun, but is shot and killed by Frank. Doc and Carol head to the meeting point in one car, while Rudy and Frank take another. On the way, Rudy shoots and kills Frank, then pushes his body out of the car. At the meeting place, a deserted farmhouse, Rudy tries to kill Doc and Carol as well, but Doc shoots Rudy three times, with his body falling into a ditch. Believing Rudy dead, Doc and Carol drive off to Benyon's ranch in a station wagon with the money, but Rudy staggers out of the ditch, as he was wearing Frank's bulletproof vest and wounded only in the shoulder. In Benyon's office, Doc confronts Benyon about the duplicity and he admits that the robbery was staged to cover a short fall in his own business and also goads Doc with Carol's infidelity. As he does so, Carol quietly enters the room and points a gun at Doc from behind, but kills Benyon instead. Doc and Carol leave, but on the highway, Doc angrily pulls over and starts hitting Carol for not telling him about the situation and has doubts whether he can trust her again.Meanwhile, Rudy, who has a hunch Doc will be heading to El Paso, takes off from the farmhouse in Doc's car and goes to Harold, a local veterinarian and his wife, Fran, forcing to them to treat his gunshot wound and then drive him to El Paso. Harold is immediately scared of Rudy, but his wife, Fran, is turned on by him. She and Rudy openly have an affair, tying Harold to a chair in their motel rooms and forcing him to watch as they have sex, with a despondent Harold eventually committing suicide. Doc and Carol decide to take a train to El Paso. While Doc stashes their getaway car in the train station's garage, Carol puts the valise with the stolen money into a locker. Because the bag is heavy, she accepts help from a stranger, who turns out to be a con man, and switches locker keys with her and steals the bag for himself. Doc chases the con man onto the train, but briefly loses him. In that time, the con man realizes what is in the bag and pockets one of the rolls of hundred dollar bills. When Doc finds the con man, he beats him unconscious, then gets off the train at the next station. He returns to San Antonio to pick up Carol as they will now have to drive to El Paso, due to too many complications in their plan, though Doc does not believe that the police have any way to connect him to the robbery. When he comes to, the con man goes to the police, who find the roll of bills he pocketed and, seeing the bank's name imprinted on the band holding the roll together, realize whose trail they are on. They show mug shots to the con man and other witnesses from the train, who confirm that Doc was the man they saw.When Carol and Doc stop in a small town to buy a portable radio, the store's proprietor recognizes Doc from a TV news report and calls the police. Then, Doc goes to a gun store and buys a pump action shotgun and shells, but notices the police arrive and coming over to grill Carol. Doc goes outside and orders the deputies to kick away their guns and lay down on the ground, and destroys their car with the shotgun. He and Carol abandon their car in a driveway outside of town to catch a passing bus and when they arrive in the next town, Carol buys a new car. That night, they stop for food at a drive-in restaurant, but the waitresses, as well as the cook, recognize Doc and call the police. Doc and Carol lead the cops on a wild chase around the surrounding area, abandon their car in an alley, and hide in a dumpster, but is emptied into a trash truck. They spend the night inside and the next morning, they are emptied with its contents into the local dump. Carol tells Doc she does not want to go on, as he clearly does not trust her, but he apologizes, reaffirms his love for her, and they walk to El Paso.However, Rudy has beat them to the hotel and a scout, sent by Benyon's associates, recognizes him and calls them, believing that Rudy and Doc intend to meet and split the money, the associates take the next plane to El Paso. Meanwhile, Rudy orders the hotel's owner, at gunpoint, to let him know when Doc arrives and the owner sends his wife and son away for the afternoon. When Doc does arrive, he recognizes this as a sign that something is wrong. The owner informs Rudy as ordered, but when he and Fran try to coax Doc and Carol into the hallway. Doc knocks Rudy out with his gun and decks Fran unconscious in the face to keep her quiet. Meanwhile, Benyon's associates have arrived and Doc engages them in a shootout, causing a scared Fran to run for her life. As he and Carol try to escape through a fire escape from the arriving police, Rudy tries to stop them one last time, but Doc finally kills him. They make a trash-collecting cowboy drive them across the border. However, the cowboy is sympathetic to their outlaw status and encourages both of them to stay married. Once in Mexico, they buy his truck for $30,000 and drive further into Mexico as the collector happily walks back home.