Three
rustlers—Bob Hightower, Pete and The Abilene Kid—ride into Welcome,
Arizona. They have a friendly conversation with Sheriff Buck Sweet and his wife, who asks if they have seen her niece and her husband on the trail. The three subsequently rob the local bank, but the loot is lost when Kid is shot and his horse falls. They flee into the desert on two horses, pursued by Sweet and his men in a
buckboard. Sweet shoots a hole in their water bag and then turns back to the
depot. The fugitives come within sight of the railroad's
water tank at Apache Wells, only to see Sweet station guards there. Doubling back to Terrapin Tanks, a granite
sump at the edge of the desert, the robbers lose their horses in a sandstorm. Desperate for water, they find the tanks dynamited by a tenderfoot, who disappeared chasing his thirsting horses. In a
covered wagon nearby lies the man's wife—Sweet's niece—who is in labor. While Pete helps with the delivery, the other two laboriously collect water from nearby
cacti. Many hours later, the woman has a boy, whom she names "Robert William Pedro Hightower" after her benefactors. Before dying, she exacts a promise from them to save him and be his
godfathers. Moved, the three desperadoes keep their vow. They find a chest filled with baby things,
condensed milk, an advice book, and a Bible. Pete offers Bob the Bible for guidance, but Bob slaps it aside. Kid, certain that a higher power guided them there, compares the baby to the infant
Jesus in the manger and themselves as the
Three Wise Men. Inspired by
a Bible verse, they head for the town of New Jerusalem, across the desert and over a mountain. The posse later comes upon the abandoned wagon, and recognizing the possessions of his niece-in-law, Sweet believes that the fugitives killed her and sets out for revenge. When they cross a
salt flat, Kid collapses and dies. Once past the flat, Pete trips, breaking his leg. He asks Bob to leave him his pistol, "for
coyotes"; as Bob walks toward the mountain, Pete commits suicide to avoid a prolonged suffering. Staggering through a ravine, Bob finally falls, but in his delirium the ghosts of his two friends refuse to let him give up. Finding
a donkey and her colt at the end of the ravine, he uses them to reach New Jerusalem, where he stumbles into a
cantina to get drinks for himself and the baby. Just as Sheriff Sweet catches up with him, Bob collapses from exhaustion. Bob is jailed in Welcome, but with his heroic rescue of the baby, the entire town has become sympathetic towards him. Bob gives his godchild into the temporary custody of the Sweets, now his friends, but when the judge asks him to give up custody permanently in exchange for a suspended sentence, he refuses to break his promise to the baby's mother. Pleased, the judge gives him the minimum sentence of a year and a day; and as he leaves for prison, all the townspeople give Bob a rousing farewell. ==Cast==