Robert Mitchum plays a jaded Civil War hero who's pursued into the barren frontier wilderness by inner demons from his childhood past and real killers in the present. His passion for Teresa Wright, who plays his stepsister leads to a fatal gunfight with her brother. Embittered and intent on seeking revenge on their wedding night, Wright marries Mitchum, but the arrival of a mysterious stranger out to settle an old score with Mitchum sidetracks her and leads to a startling climax of treachery, murder and shocking revelations.