While elk hunting in Colorado John Stumpt rescues a woman from a man who is trying to shoot her, but he kills the attacker in the process. The woman, Betsy, has been involved with the Riveras, a family of brothers that are drug smugglers and abductors of young women. While fleeing from Colorado to his home near Fort Worth, Texas, John and Betsy rescue three girls, Maria, Elena, and Teresa, who had been kidnapped in Mexico and were about to be sold into prostitution by the brothers.
By tracking hunting licenses the brothers find Johns address in Texas and send men to watch the house to see if Betsy is there. Before they arrive, John, Betsy and the girls leave for a pheasant-hunting trip to South Dakota. A neighbor notices the surveillance of his house and notifies John who then returns to Texas. Leaving Betsy and the girls in Amarillo, John goes to his house about 2:00 a.m. His return is seen, and a watcher goes to either capture or murder John, but John is able to kill him instead.
John and Betsy realize they won’t be safe until the remaining two brothers are dead, so they plan a scouting trip to the Rivers ranch in New Mexico. While Betsy returns Teresa to Mexico, John and Maria go to scout the ranch in New Mexico. Maria is much older than Teresa and Elena and has passed into womanhood. Betsy asks a friend of hers, Rita, whom also wants to escape the clutches of the brothers, for help. On the trip Maria and John develop an attraction for each other, and Maria seduces John despite his reservations about their age difference. In New Mexico, with Rita’s help, John and Maria kill another brother and his bodyguard.
After everyone is back safely in Amarillo, they decide to move south to Rockport for the winter. Betsy forgives John for his affair with Maria. John decides to settle the fight by challenging the last brother, Miguel, to a showdown. Elena stays with Rita, while John, Betsy, and Maria leave for the duel site in Colorado. Knowing that Miguel will plan an ambush, John trains Betsy and Maria in concealment and sniper shooting. The showdown leaves Miguel and his henchmen dead. John and Maria are unscathed, but Betsy is wounded. John takes her to a hospital in Durango where her gunshot wound attracts police interest. While Betsy is recuperating John and Maria become a couple again.
John, Betsy, and Maria return to Texas, and Betsy forces John to choose between her and Maria. John chooses Betsy and Maria goes to live with Rita in Rockport while Elena returns to Fort Worth. After Miguel and the other bodies are discovered, another brother, Paul, Betsy’s first love, arrives at the New Mexico ranch. Everyone, except Miguel, thought he was dead. Paul vows to continue the feud and travels to John and Betsy’s house in Texas with a fake offer of peace. Paul imports a group of hit men who kill Betsy and severely wound John.
Rita and Maria return to Fort Worth to aid John and Elena. Maria, while guarding John at the hospital, kills two assassins who were sent by Paul. John recovers, and he, Maria, Rita, and Elena flee to Florida. Knowing they need heightened skills to defeat Paul, John and Maria enroll in a mercenary training school. After their training is completed John and Maria go to New Mexico to kill Paul, but mistakenly kill his son and wife. John and Maria return to the training school, where Maria ditches John and takes up with one of the instructors, Jack. John returns to Rita and Elena in Florida.
Maria persuades Jack and the other instructor, Tom, to help her take out Paul, and in return, she will join their company as an assassin for hire. They are successful. Believing that their troubles ended with Paul’s demise, John, Rita, and Elena move to a farm in Mississippi. However, a national story about the bloody battles between John, Betsy, and Maria, and the Rivera brothers is published. Since it includes John and Rita’s location in Mississippi, Maria worries that Tom and Jack will kill her and John to keep
