In effect, modern cow town Spurline is run by Virgil Renchler, owner of the Golden Empire Ranch. One night, two of Virgil’s henchmen go a little too far and beat a “bracero” ranch hand to death. Faced with an obvious cover-up and opposition on every hand, sheriff Ben Sadler is goaded into investigating. His unlikely ally: Renchler’s lovely, self-willed and overprotected daughter. Will Ben survive Renchler’s wrath?

As Aunt Alice, Ruth Gordon applies for the job of housekeeper in the Tucson, Arizona home of widow Claire Marrable in order to find out what happened to a missing widowed friend, Edna Tilsney. The crazed Page, left only a stamp album by her husband, takes money from her housekeepers, kills them, and buries the bodies in her garden. Alice is a widow too. So is neighbor Harriet Vaughn. Lots of widows here.

A fiercely independent cowboy arranges to have himself locked up in jail in order to then escape with an old friend who has been sentenced to the penitentiary.

In the border town of San Pablo, preparing for an annual ‘Mexican Fiesta,’ the tough, mysterious and laconic Gagin arrives. His mission is to find the equally mysterious Frank Hugo, evidently for revenge, or is it for blackmail? FBI agent Retz is also after the elusive Hugo. Everyone in town is enigmatic, especially Pila, a mystical young woman who follows Gagin around after premonitions of his death. The story includes a classic femme fatale and an antique carousel with a pink horse.