In a small, dusty border town, two long-time best friends of the mysterious gunman Josey Wales are brutally murdered by marauding rurales. The rurales, led by the beastial Commandante Escobar, head back to Mexico with gambler Ten Spot as hostage. Told of his friend's peril, Josey sets out on a trail of bloody vengeance.

After the American Civil War, a man named Josey Wales seeks revenge on those who killed his family. Along the way, he rescues a native-American woman and becomes a target himself. Set in the 1860s, Josey Wales must navigate through a treacherous landscape filled with outlaws and bounty hunters as he seeks justice.