SYNOPSIS:

In a proloque sequence, Rube Boyce, 74, sits out behind a small cafe, firing his old six-shooter at rats feeding on the kitchen refuse. A waitress tells a startled customer that "it's just the old man owns the place" who was once a famous outlaw. Fifty years melt away, and we meet the 27-year-old Rube, his appearance and affable manner belying his fearsome reputation as a man killer, cattle thief, gambler and hard drinking rowdy. He is locked up in Austin's supposedly escape-proof Travis County Jail, awaiting trial on Federal charges of robbing the U.S. Mail near a stagecoach way station known as Pegleg Crossing. All his alleged "Pegleg Gang" accomplices have already been convicted or pleaded guilty and are in a Federal prison. Across town, Rube's wife Addie prepares for her weekly visit to take Rube a basket of clean underwear and food. At the jail, she's allowed to spend time with Rube in his cell. The visit over, Rube calls the jailer to let her out. At the cellblock door, Rube pulls out the six-shooter Addie has hidden under a false bottom of her basket and tells the jailer he's a dead man if he doesn't cooperate. With Addie holding the cellblock door's bolt secure, Rube runs to the racehorse tied out back for him by his brother and is off and running through the streets of Austin and out of town, firing off his pistol as he goes. The Texas Rangers quickly join the chase, but Rube has too much of a head start. In all the excitement, Addie walks away without being accosted and joins Rube at a prearranged meeting place on the trail. They return to their home county where relatives help them hide in a cave in the hills. But Addie has to get back to the couple's infant son, and Rube has to keep running. They will not see each other again for eighteen months. Rube makes his way to Socorro, New Mexico where he goes to work in a silver mine, learning the mining business well. A year later, he stakes his own claim, only to have it disputed, and a goon is sent to chase him away. Rube beats him badly, but the goon returns with a gun. Wounded, Rube returns fire and kills him. He is arrested but let off on grounds of self-defense. However, news of the case gets back to Austin, and fugitive Rube is returned to the Travis County Jail. Addie somehow hires a fancy new lawyer who not only gets Rube a new trial but, in an unlikely turn, wins him an acquittal. A free man, Rube abandons his outlaw ways, but not his drinking and gambling, and tries one thing and another to make an honest living. To Addie's dismay, he becomes a partner in a saloon, and sure enough one night he samples too much of his own inventory, wanders drunkenly down the street firing off his pistol and is shot in the back by a frightened onlooker. Almost fatally wounded, Rube is nursed back to health by Addie, but she is near the end of her rope. Afraid of losing her, he swears off the bottle, sells his interest in the saloon and flabbergasts Addie by telling her to pack up for a trip to the Northwest Territory and a new life. There, he intends to pursue the one vocation he has been successful at—prospecting and mining. She goes with him, but years pass, their son grows up, and Rube misses it all. He is always away at some mining camp, searching in vain for the mother lode. As he prepares to leave yet again, Addie finally tells him she is leaving too, moving in with their son and his family. She pours out to him the heartbreak caused by years of loneliness, unfulfilled needs, and growing anger over his neglect. He knows she's ill but not how serious it is. He tells for the thousandth time he is sorry, that he will change, but her mind is made up. They separate, and he leaves. Back at his mining camp months later, Rube gets a note from his son that Addie has taken a turn for the worse and is calling for him. He goes to her, but he is too late, and her death hits him harder than a 45-caliber slug in the gut. He finally gets it — that mountains of gold can never make up for the real treasure he's had all along but has stubbornly, selfishly taken for granted all these years. Estranged from the son he has never really known, he sells his mining claims and gear and drifts back to Texas. In the epilogue—a continuation of the opening scene—we return to the back of Rube's cafe where, his pistol aimed at another rat, his defective heart finally gives out. SCREEN GOES BLACK — SCROLL OVER BLACK: Gambler, cattle rustler, stage robber, jail breaker, and killer of at least three men, Rube Boyce never served a single day in a penitentiary. His "lucky" gold nugget was still in his pocket when he died of heart failure in 1927 at age 74... Alone, full of regrets, and—after 12 years—still grieving for Addie. Cancer took her life but, like Rube... she died with a wounded heart. FADE OUT