"Bronco" Billy McCoy (Clint Eastwood) is the proud owner of a small travelling Wild West show. But the business isn't doing too well. For the past six months, he hasn't paid his employees. At a gas station he picks up Antoinette Lily (Sondra Locke), a stuck-up blonde from a rich family, who was left behind without a penny by her husband John Arlington (Geoffrey Lewis) on their wedding night. Billy likes her looks and hires her as his assistant. She seems to bring them bad luck and the business gets even worse. In these hard times, she loses her reluctance and starts to like her new way of life, and Bronco Billy.