Interracial strife hits Atoka County, Alabama in Director Terence Young's tense thriller. When local white woman Nancy Poteet (Linda Evans) is raped one night, apparently by a black man, the subsequent murder of a black teenager threatens to undermine the fragile balancing act of local County Sheriff 'Big Track' Bascomb (Lee Marvin). Undermined by his Klan-supporting deputy (Cameron Mitchell) and local employer/Mayor, Hardy Riddle (David Huddlestone), Bascomb tries to keep the lid on the powder-keg of a potential race-war.