One Foot in Hell

After his homestead is burned down by the Yankees at the end of the Civil War, Confederate sympathizer Mitch Barrett and his very pregnant wife Ellie take to the road in their covered wagon. When Ellie's delivery time nears, she begins to experience excruciating pain and Mitch hurriedly drives to the nearest town, Blue Springs, for medical treatment. There, Caldwell, the uncooperative hotel clerk, demands prepayment before granting them a room. Doc Seltzer, the town's sympathetic physician, writes Ellie a prescription which store owner Sam Giller then refuses to fill because Mitch lacks the $1.87 to pay for it. After Mitch demands the life-saving medicine at gunpoint, Giller summons Sheriff Olson, who detains Mitch. When Mitch finally reaches the hotel, he finds Ellie dead. Remorseful, Doc asks Mitch to give the town a second chance and Mitch accepts the job of deputy sheriff. Some years later, Mitch meets fellow Confederate Dan Keats, an embittered, self-pitying drunk. Taking note of Dan's drawing ability, Mitch, feigning Confederate comradery, enlists him in a plot to rob the bank of $100,000, assigning him to draw a plan of the town and formulate a potent explosive called liquid fire. Soon after, Olson and Mitch ride out of town in pursuit of some rustlers. As they camp along the roadside, Mitch recalls the cruel night, years earlier, when Olson's actions contributed to Ellie's death, and then guns down the sheriff in cold blood. Upon returning to town, Mitch blames Olson's murder on the rustlers and is appointed the new sheriff. Afterward, Dan and Mitch travel across the border to the squalid town of Royce City to recruit several reprobates for the robbery. Mitch, who is looking for a woman to pose as his bride, is approached by Julie Reynolds, a hardened saloon girl, who sees the theft as her chance for a fresh start. At the bar, Mitch spots Harry Ivers, an unscrupulous conman who carries a derringer up his sleeve, and enlists him. Determined to hire the winner of a big $500 shootout, Mitch attends the contest and watches as the brutish Stu Christian coldly guns down his unskilled opponent as the man's pregnant wife looks on in horror. Impressed, Mitch immediately offers Stu a job. Later, when Stu gruffly manhandles Julie, she rebukes him, prompting Mitch to hire her for her spunk. After Mitch insists on holding a wedding ceremony to lend legitimacy to their union, Dan, who has become smitten by Julie, simmers with jealousy. When Julie chides Dan for his excessive drinking, Dan voices his loneliness and longing for a new life. Soon after, Mitch, who has covered his absence from town with the story that he has gone to St. Louis to get married, rides into Blue Springs with his new bride. When the townsfolk welcome the newlyweds and present Mitch with the deed to his rented house, Julie wonders how he can betray his friends. Four days before cattle buyer Mark Dobbs is to arrive in town and deposit $100,000 in the bank, Mitch lays out the details of his plan. Mitch instructs Stu and Harry to split up after the robbery while he leads the posse on a wild goose chase and Julie and Dan wait at the house with the money. After Dan leaves the room, Mitch tells Stu to kill Caldwell and assigns Harry to murder Giller. On the day of the robbery, Dobbs and his cattle ride into Blue Springs while Julie, accompanied by Dan, drives a wagon loaded with liquid fire to town. Meanwhile, Harry goes to the general store and shoots Giller while Stu slaughters Caldwell. Dan then lobs the liquid explosives into the store, sparking a fire that stampedes the cattle, causing a diversion. At the bank, Mitch guns down Dobbs while Stu and Harry rob the vault. To make the robbery look authentic, Stu wounds Mitch in the arm before riding off. As the wounded Mitch leads the posse into the hills, Dan, now sober, starts to fall in love with Julie. Several days later, Mitch appears at Stu's hideout and tells him to ride back to town while he leads the posse astray. Unknown to Stu, Mitch has set him up, and when he steps out the door, the posse, waiting in ambush, guns him down. Back at Mitch's house, Dan voices his love for Julie and asks her to marry him and start a new life tilling his land in Virginia. After Julie accepts, they decide to renounce their share of the money and Dan rides to town to inform Mitch of their decision. When Dan sees the posse ride into town with Stu's and Harry's dead bodies hung over their horses, he realizes that Mitch has double-crossed them and hurries back to the house. There, Mitch diabolically explains that he hired the scum of the earth to work for him because they all deserved to die. When Dan tries to appeal to Mitch's reason, Mitch strikes Julie and Mitch lunges at him. After overpowering Dan, Mitch is about to shoot him when Julie kills him with a shotgun blast. In town, Dan and Julie return the money to Doc Seltzer, but when the compassionate Doc tries to convince them to escape, they insist on standing trial and accepting responsibility for their crime. Aware that they are facing a prison term, Dan and Julie embrace.