The film starts in 1851, with Dunson and Groot leaving a wagon train bound for the far west, to establish a ranch just north of the Rio Grande. There is where they first meet young Matt (played by Mickey Kuhn), who is a survivor of the wagon train they just left. It was ambushed by Indians, and ended up killing Dunson’s woman, Fen (Coleen Gray), whom he sent on, feeling they were safer in the wagon train than alone with him and Groot. Soon they find the sort of land they desire, and Dunson murders the enforcer of a Mexican cattle baron who claims the land. Dunson then spends fourteen years raising livestock, establishing the Red River ranch, and living through the Civil War, only to find out there’s no market for his product, ten thousand head strong, so he has to hire men on to help Matt and him drive them north to Missouri.

Along the way they meet up with hardships, stampedes, Indians, robbers, and worst of all, their own egos. Several of the men end up being killed by Dunson for rebelling, and there is a morose ritual that Dunson always follows — he murders, then buries, and reads over the dead from the Bible. That is, until Matt takes command from him, sick of Dunson’s paranoia. He humiliates and emasculates Dunson in front of the others, and vows to take the cattle due north, along the newly blazed Chisholm Trail, to avoid Missouri bandits and sell his livestock at the Abilene railroad station.

Dunson, of course, vows vengeance, and that he will come back and kill Matt, whom he claims is just a common thief. As Dunson is banished and the herd heads north, they encounter a wagon train being attacked by Indians. The men help defeat the savages, and, of course, the most beautiful of the dance girls in the train, Tess Millay (JoAnne Dru), falls instantly in love with Matt, after seeing his heroics and being so distracted by him she gets shot with an arrow through the right shoulder. Recall how I mentioned that the film’s end was perhaps the least satisfactory aspect of the film? Well, that perhaps is because the love story aspect is so forced and phony that it gives the ending a run for the money as the film’s nadir. That both involve Dru’s character is no coincidence. That said, her character is likable and well acted, and she is heaven on the eyes. There’s simply no real reason for her to be injected into the tale.

Naturally, Matt tells her she cannot come along, after they become intimate and he relates the tale of the avenging Dunson. When Dunson and some hired thugs catch up with the wagon train eight days later, they apparently have not decamped yet, he and Millay have a nice scene where they spar with each other, and she convinces Dunson to take her along. In Abilene, the cattle are sold, the men are happy, and they await the showdown between Matt and Dunson. It comes, and, at first plays realistically.
Dunson shoots Cherry, who wings him, then shoots past Matt’s head, then feet. Matt does not flinch. Dunson yells, "You’re soft! Won’t anything make a man out of you?" He then belts Matt a few times and tosses him to the ground. Then Matt fights back and starts kicking the older man’s ass. Then, Millay fires off her gun, gets the two men to admit they love each other, and the film ends in forced Hollywood style with Dunson stating he’ll add Matt’s M to the Red River ranch brand’s D, and with the sort of forced laughter that bad sitcoms use at the end of an episode. The end, literally. It’s that bad. So bad that it has to supplant the sunshiny ending of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon as the worst ending of a great, or near great, film.