Two Vietnam deserters go their separate ways, become criminals and are eventually reunited.

Gale (Charles Robinson) is an idealistic and naive young hunter who ignores warnings that no one can survive for long in the jungles of Mexico except the native Indians. He tries to hunt crocodiles but becomes delirious, disoriented and nears death. Sleigh (John Huston) is a veteran hunter living among the natives who rescues Gale just in time. As he recovers in the Indian village, Gale listens to Sleigh's denunciation of the evils of modern society (ie. money, greed and oil). Later on, a former native of the village returns from the oil fields of Texas and presents his young brother with a pair of cowboy boots. Proudly wearing his new boots, the boy falls off the wooden bridge into the river and drowns as the boots, symbolic shackles of civilization, fill up with water and pull him beneath the surface. Sleigh and Gale observe the Indians as they recover the body and stage an elaborate funeral for the dead boy