Hud Bannon is a ruthless young man who tarnishes everything and everyone he touches. Hud represents the perfect embodiment of alienated youth, out for kicks with no regard for the consequences. There is bitter conflict between the callous Hud and his stern and highly principled father, Homer. Hud’s nephew Lon admires Hud’s cheating ways, though he soon becomes too aware of Hud’s reckless amorality to bear him anymore. In the world of the takers and the taken, Hud is a winner. He’s a cheat, but, he explains, “I always say the law was meant to be interpreted in a lenient manner.”

The Elder boys return to Clearwater, Texas for their Mother’s funeral. John the eldest is a well known gunfighter and trouble follows him wherever he goes. The boys try to get back their ranch from the towns gunsmith who won it from their father in a card game with which he was shortly murdered there after but not before getting through the troubles that come with the Elders name