Plot
Rio (also called "The Kid"), his partner Dad Longworth, and a third man named Doc, rob a bank. The robbery is successful, but some Mexican Rurales attack and kill Doc. Dad and Rio manage to escape in the desert followed by a posse.
Rio figures the Rurales will be "swarming all over us inside an hour." One partner might take the remaining pony and ride to a little jacalito down the canyon about five miles and return with fresh mounts. They shake for it, with Rio fixing the deal so his pal Dad can be the one to go.
Dad gets to a corral, strapping the swag bag onto a fresh pony, but he gets second thoughts. He casts one eye towards a point on the ridge sure to be taken by the Rurales, and with the other he gazes off in the opposite direction out past a low-lying treeline towards the border and safety. One way leads to danger and a poor chance at surviving with half the booty, the other towards a virtual certainty with all of it. After a decidedly short moment of reflection, he takes the latter and leaves his friend to be taken by Rurales. Rio is arrested, and is transported to prison by way of the jacalito, where he learns firsthand of Dad's betrayal from the owner.
Rio spends five years in a "stinkin' Sonora prison," which allows him to concentrate on Dad's having abandoned him. When he locates his former partner in crime, Longworth has become the sheriff of Monterey, California. Dad finally gets a chance to "explain" why he left his friend back in Mexico but tries again to deceive Rio by lying about why he never returned.
Rio plans a bank robbery in Monterey with his new partners Chico Modesto and Bob Emory. But his plans are sidetracked when he falls in love with Longworth's stepdaughter, Louisa, and when Dad administers a vicious beating with a whip in front of the entire town.
While recovering from his wounds near the ocean, Rio struggles with his conflicting desires to love the girl and to kill her stepfather for revenge. He decides to forgo vengeance, fetch Louisa and leave, but Emory kills Chico and pulls off the bank job. However, the heist goes wrong and a bystander is killed. Rio is falsely accused and locked up by Longworth, who desperately wants to kill Rio in an attempt to absolve his own guilt over the earlier betrayal. Rio is due to be hanged in two days.
Louisa visits Rio in jail, first to confess that she is going to have his baby, and then to attempt to smuggle a miniature pistol. Rio bluffs his way out of jail with the unloaded pistol, and helps himself to the revolver of sadistic deputy Lon Dedrick. In the center of town, under fire and left with no choice, he kills Longworth in a final showdown.
In the closing scene, Rio and Louisa ride out to the dunes and say a sentimental farewell. Rio will now be a hunted man and tells Louisa that he's going to Oregon but to look for him in the Spring.
Read more about this topic: One-Eyed Jacks
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