Four years into his ten-year sentence for armed robbery, Carter "Doc" McCoy is denied parole from a Texas prison. When his wife Carol visits him, he tells her to do whatever is necessary to make a deal with Jack Beynon, a corrupt businessman in San Antonio, to free him. Beynon uses his influence and obtains Doc's parole on the condition that he take part in a bank robbery with two of his henchmen, Rudy and Frank. Frank kills a guard, then Rudy attempts a double-cross, killing Frank and drawing on Doc, who quickly reacts and shoots Rudy several times. Doc takes the $500,000 ($3.1 million today) and leaves. Rudy, having secretly worn a bulletproof vest, is only wounded.
Doc meets with Beynon, not realizing he had arranged a double-cross wherein Carol would sneak into the meet and kill Doc; however, Carol turns her gun on Beynon, killing him. Doc, having just been taunted by Beynon before Carol shot him, realizes that Carol had sex with Beynon to secure his parole. He angrily gathers up the money and, after a bitter quarrel, the couple flees for the border at El Paso.
Rudy forces rural veterinarian Harold and his wife Fran to treat his injuries, then kidnaps them to pursue Doc and Carol. Beynon's brother Cully and his thugs also pursue the McCoys. At a train station, a con man swaps locker keys with Carol and steals their bag of money. Doc follows him onto a train and forcefully takes it back. The injured con man and a train passenger�a boy whom Doc had rebuked for squirting him with a water gun�are taken to the police station, where they identify Doc's mug shot.
Carol buys a car, and the McCoys drive to an electronics store. As Doc buys a portable radio, he switches off the radio set near the proprietor's desk broadcasting the news of the earlier incidents they were involved in. When all the television sets in the store show Doc's picture, he leaves immediately. The proprietor gets a glimpse of the picture and calls the police. Doc steals a shotgun from a neighboring store, and shoots up the police car so that they can flee.
