When gunfighter Dan Ritchy rides into the quiet town of Mesa, he finds a lone Mexican-American man waiting for him. The man, David Robles, reminds Ritchy that they met five years earlier when Ritchy and three cohorts shot up David's town of Del Rio. David says he now has learned to use a gun and has killed the other three men. In a shoot-out, David kills Ritchy and suffers a wound himself. After Doc Adams determines that he only has a flesh wound, the doc's assistant, Estella, an attractive Mexican-American woman, tends to David despite her contempt for gunfighters. Saloon owner Ed Bannister, an ex-gunfighter himself, welcomes David, saying that he had invited Ritchy to town, but now is happy to have David instead. When three other gunfighters, the Dawson brothers and Fred Jasper, arrive in town, they drink with David, impressed that he gunned down Ritchy. The friendliness amongst the gunslingers evaporates instantly when David expresses the wish to go see a girl, and Bannister says that there are no decent "white" women in the vicinity. David repays Estella for bandaging him, then tries to kiss her, but she threatens him with a scissors. They are interrupted by the sound of gunfire and find that the Dawsons and Jasper have strung up sheriff Jack Tillman and have begun to drunkenly fire at him as he swings from a rope. When David does nothing, Estella intercedes. One of the Dawson brothers grabs her and calls her "Chiquita," and when Jasper calls David "Pancho," David shoots him and one of the brothers, while the other rides off in fright. Bannister tells David of his plan to make Mesa a wide-open town where cowherders from Texas could spend their trail money at saloons and dancehalls without interference from the law. When he says he needs David's fast gun to back him up, David replies he does not like him. David tries to romance Estella again, but she rebuffs him, saying that her deceased husband was a gunfighter and that his death left her alone with a daughter, who now lives with in-laws in Wichita. She says it has taken her four years to establish herself in Mesa. Having witnessed the prejudice there, David questions whether she has been accepted, and she contends she has earned the town's respect. David is offered $100 a month plus a room to be the town's new sheriff, and he accepts. When Estella taunts him, he says he has won the respect of the town in one day, while it took her four years. She retorts that it is only his gun that is respected. Snubbed by some of the townsfolk, David gets drunk in the street with Breezy Morgan, an alcoholic. Estella encourages him to leave town, and he confesses that he took the job not because of the money but because of her. When she laughs that he only wants her for another notch in his gun, he slaps her and accuses her of trying to forget how she feels, and she cries. David gets into a fight with Bannister and wins, but when he learns from Doc Adams that he has broken his wrist, he is terrified that he can no longer be a gunfighter. Doc Adams warns him to leave town, but David convinces him not to tell anyone about his wrist. The next morning, David orders Bannister to get out of town by noon. When a young gunslinger new to town refuses to leave, David challenges him to draw, then slaps him down until the boy grabs at his arm. The doc, seeing David's pained look, takes David into his office, where Breezy overhears David say that because of his broken wrist, he plans to leave town once Bannister goes. Breezy relates this to Bannister, who now challenges David to meet him in the street in ten minutes. When Estella suggests they leave town and make a home together with her daughter, he kisses her and tells her to have the horses saddled up; however, when he steps onto the street and Bannister taunts him, he rolls up his sleeve and unravels his bandage. David challenges Bannister to draw, but Bannister, suspecting David paid Breezy to give him false information so that he could gun him down, allows David to take his gun. Estella now looks at David with pride, and they walk together past the horses that were waiting to take them out of town.