'Doc' Riedenschneider, legendary crime 'brain' just out of prison, has a brilliant plan for a million-dollar burglary. To pull it off, he recruits safecracker Louis, driver Gus, financial backer Emmerich, and strong-arm man Dix Handley. At first the plan goes like clockwork, but little accidents accumulate and each partner proves to have his own fatal weakness. In the background is a pervasive, grimy urban malaise.

Major Howell Brady and two non-coms are assigned to go to Indian territory and recruit peaceful Seminoles relocated from Florida to aid the army in fighting the larger, rampaging Kiowa tribe. Brady promises them better land than the subsistence reservation they have been assigned to. Maygro, their chief, although initially reluctant, finally agrees for the good of his people. However, Brady's superior, Col. Jackson Meade, is hostile to the idea and distrusts having Indians as allies. Beautiful widow Elaine Corwin, proves a pleasant distraction for Brady although her husband, a unrepentant Confederate whose body was never found, may still be alive and leading the savage Kiowas against the hated Yankees.

Alonzo Hawk is a mean-spirited property developer who has bought several blocks of land in the downtown district in order to build a gigantic shopping mall. There is one problem however; an elderly widow named Steinmetz won't sell the one remaining lot that Hawk needs to proceed with his scheme. So he resorts to all manner of chicanery, legal or otherwise, to get it. Fortunately, the widow Steinmetz has an ace up her sleeve in the form of Herbie, the miraculous Volkswagen.

In a marksmanship contest, Lin McAdam wins a prized Winchester rifle, which is immediately stolen by the runner-up, Dutch Henry Brown. This "story of a rifle" then follows McAdams' pursuit, and the rifle as it changes hands, until a final showdown and shoot-out on a rocky mountain precipice.

Following the surrender of Geronimo, Massai, the last Apache warrior is captured and scheduled for transportation to a Florida reservation...