Flap, a hard-drinking Indian who lives on an impoverished reservation in the Southwest, is in a constant state of anger over the mistreatment of his tribe. Moreover, he argues incessantly with his mistress Dorothy Bluebell, the madam of the local brothel who resents his unfaithfulness to her. Flap gets drunk one night and commandeers and destroys a bulldozer belonging to a road construction company which is encroaching on the reservation. Flap's act, intended to attract attention to the Indians' cause, results in a heated dispute between Flap and his longtime enemy, Rafferty, a halfbreed and the town's brutal police sergeant. Wounded Bear Mr. Smith, a crony of Flap's and a self-made lawyer who is an expert on Indian treaties, advises Flap that anything abandoned on an Indian reservation becomes Indian property, whereupon Flap and his friends steal a train and roll it onto the reservation, intending to claim it as Indian property. This daring act is noticed by the news services, whose representatives soon arrive at the reservation looking for Flap; but he is hiding out in the mountains, regrouping his forces for a protest march on the town. They parade down Main Street in an attempt to make people see the Indians' plight. Rafferty, in the hospital recovering from a beating he received from Flap because he maliciously caused a comrade of Flap's to suffer a fatal heart attack by cold-bloodedly shooting the man's dog, sees the protest march and from his hospital window assassinates the Indian leader as he speaks in the town square.
