A small band of renegade Apache led by Broken Hand have captured the daughters of a preacher and are headed for Mexico. After them are Anson Hawkstone and Black Feather, scouting for the army, plus the preacher with four gunmen, and a cavalry patrol that cannot cross the Mexican border. Added to that, Apache Joe and his Choctaw squaw are trading smallpox and typhoid blankets to Apache villages throughout the territories, and are headed for the village where Hawkstone's woman, Rachel, lives and works as the nurse-doctor. Closing in on the renegade band, Hawkstone is torn between rescuing the preacher's daughters, and deserting them in a ride to save his woman from disease. Can he do both?