Men disappear around Blue Mesa, New Mexico. Dick Young, apparently an easy-going artist, vanishes close to a deep chasm in this locality ruled by powerful rancher Walt Guisewell who sees the land he has tamed as his 'kingdom'. Bob Young, brother of the missing man, arrives and proves very different from Dick. Sometime soldier; sometime convict and sometime lawman, he wears the holster of his Colt revolver tied down by a rawhide thong - the mark of a gunfighter with a reputation and not one to be trifled with. Looking for answers to his brother's disappearance, he finds that others have disappeared and is soon head-to-head in a bullet-bitten conflict with rancher Guisewell and his crew.