Pinto and Curly Renner are brothers that live on a ranch near Dodge City. Pinto is the older of the two, and he considers himself the guardian and caretaker of his younger brother. Curly resents Pinto's overbearing nature. When Curly sells a herd of their cattle for a large sum of money, he refuses to turn the money over to Pinto.
Curly is involved romantically with a "saloon girl" named Karen Dean, and Pinto disapproves of the relationship. Pinto tries to entice Karen to leave Curly and Dodge by offering her money, but Karen figures she can do better by running away with Curly and the $18,000 he was paid for the cattle.
When Pinto confronts Curly in the Dodge City stables, Curly shoots and kills his older brother. Curly and Karen immediately take off for Tascosa where they intend to hide out. What Curly doesn't know is that a man named Kurt Relko and his partner Tex Shipley are also hiding out from the law in Tascosa, and Relko and Karen were lovers at one time.
This establishes a kind of a mess of a plot where Matt Dillon is pursuing Curly, Festus Haggen is following Matt, Matt is ambushed, Festus saves him, Curly and Karen are hiding out, Curly regrets killing his brother, and Karen is playing up to both Relko and Curly trying to engineer the situation to her advantage.
This isn't a particularly compelling story, and the sudden resolution lacks much in the way of tension or suspense.
There is also a glaring error in the story. While Curly is lamenting his actions in killing his brother, he compares his situation to the Cain and Abel story in the Bible, but the comparison is not accurate. Curly tells Karen he is just like Cain because he killed his brother for potage. Cain did not kill Abel for food. He killed Abel because he was jealous that Abel's offering to God pleased God, while Cain's offering did not. The Bible story Curly actually referenced is the story of Jacob and Esau where Esau trades Jacob his birthright for a pot of stew, but Esau did not kill his brother.
The cast of character actors here is solid. Tom Simcox is Curly Renner. Simcox appeared in many Gunsmoke episodes and was a familiar face in television shows during this time. John Milford, another familiar Hollywood face, plays the Pinto Renner role. H.M Wynant is Kurt Relko. Wynant appeared in just about every television series at some point during the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, including numerous Gunsmoke episodes. He has continued to act well into the 2000s.
