When aging loner Will Penny (Charlton Heston) is hired to ride the lines around a vast ranch, he stumbles upon Catherine Allen (Joan Hackett) and her son, who are secretly living in an abandoned cabin. Penny gives Catherine and her son a week to move out, but an encounter with some ghosts from his past leaves him wounded and reliant on her. Penny soon finds himself falling for Catherine and becoming a father to her son, but his past continues to haunt him, hurtling him toward a confrontation.