After a fight with a client, advertising executive Dinah Hunter (Yvette Mimieux) comes home to find her boyfriend in the swimming pool with a topless girl. Sick of his constant philandering, she calls a friend and gets her old job back in New York City. Driving cross-country from Los Angeles, Dinah picks up a young man, Bobby Ray (Robert Carradine), and his pregnant girlfriend Lola (Nancy Lee Noble).That night, they drive past an overturned truck of melons and see Coley Blake (Tommy Lee Jones), a man in his thirties, being arrested as his partner's body is being removed from the scene. Later, Dinah stops on a deserted stretch of highway to let Lola and Billy Ray out. Lola pulls out a gun. Bobby Ray orders Dinah out of car, then debates if he should kill her. Instead, he knocks her out with the pistol and steals her car and purse.Dinah walks into an empty bar and asks Dan Oldum, the bartender, to use his phone. After she cleans up in the ladies room, Oldum tries to rape her. She hits him with a ceramic duck and runs out front, right into the arms of Deputy Burt. Oldum tells Bert that Dinah came in all crazy and assaulted him. Bert asks for identification and Dinah explains that both her car and purse have been stolen. Bert arrests her and then thanks Oldum for supplying soda pop for a police picnic.The next day, Dinah is in a cell next to Blake. Sheriff Dempsey explains to her that Oldum is not pressing charges, but until he can get through to Los Angeles or New York to verify her identity, she has to stay in jail. He then tells Blake that he is to be extradited to Texas for a murder charge.That evening, the night jailer, Deputy Hobie, brings in the prisoners' meals. He asks Dinah if she is from Hollywood and then picks up a hot dog and says he heard Hollywood girls like wieners. Dinah says he's mistaken. He goes back to the office, but comes back later and rapes her. As Hobie pulls up his pants, Dinah grabs a stool and beats him to death. Blake reaches through the bars and stops her. Since Hobie is dead, Blake takes his keys, opens both cells, and drags Dinah outside to steal Hobie's pickup. Blake flies down the road and passes Dempsey, who gives chase. As the sheriff gains on them, a drunk driver misses Blake and smashes into the police cruiser. Both vehicles explode, killing both Sheriff Dempsey and the drunk driver.Dinah comes out of her shock and demands Blake go back and tell the police what happened. He explains she killed a cop and they will shoot her on sight. Instead, he takes her to a run-down barn out in the hills to hide out. There, he meets up with some friends who let Dinah clean up and give her a change of clothes. As Blake and Dinah are leaving, two officers from the Bakersfield police show up and tell everybody to surrender. Blake's friends pull out machine guns and hold off the police while Blake and Dinah escape in the pick up.After driving through pastures and dirt roads, they find an empty ranch house to hide in. Listening to the news, they discover that they are both wanted for Hobie's death. Dinah is determined to turn herself in, but Blake explains that it does not matter that she was raped; she killed a cop. She is either going to jail where rape is the norm or she will beat the charge, but the fight will change her forever. He says that, since she doesn't have a record, she could just run and no one will be the wiser. When she says she can't be a fugitive, he tells her to tell the police that he killed Hobie and kidnapped her. She says she can't do that, either.The next morning they are awakened by the shotgun-carrying owner of the ranch. Blake knocks the shotgun out of man's hand and the two crash through a window. During the fight, the rancher wounds Blake with a scythe and is about to kill him when Dinah puts a gun to the man's head. The fight has caught the attention of a police helicopter. Blake and Dinah jump into the pickup with Dinah driving. They barely avoid a head-on collision that forces a cruiser to crash. The helicopter radios the Fallsburg police who are all at a Bicentennial parade.The Fallsburg police chief orders his men to make a roadblock using a tractor-trailer. Dinah drives right into the trap and the police open fire, hitting Dinah in the shoulder. Blake tries to help Dinah to escape on foot, but she is too badly wounded. He tells her he has to go and she says they will kill him. He laughs and says he "was born dead." Blake and the police exchange gunfire as he runs through the town and into the parade. The police gun him down as he knocks over a standard bearer and Blake dies lying on the American flag. The Police Chief drives up with Dinah in the back seat and she stares at Blake's dead body.