When Irishman Richard O'Shea, commonly known to everybody as Rick O'Shea, decides that the time has come to give up his life of banditry and return to his own country, he feels the need first to make his confession in San Angelo's Catholic church. His plans are thrown into disarray when, at the priest's urging, he delays his voyage home, in order to undertake the rescue of a child being held to ransom across the border in Mexico. Caught between a vicious band of cutthroats on the one side and a crooked lawman on the other, Rick O'Shea's chances of getting back to Ireland in one piece seem to dwindle by the minute and he soon finds himself wishing that he'd never troubled himself with confessing his sins in the first place.