Johnny Yuma returns home one year after the war's end to find a gang of thugs have extorted a local mine and murdered his father while his father's deputy and the rest of the town live in fear and despair.

Yuma believes there is something very corrupt about a town that tries a horse thief, and sentences him to hang within hours of his capture.

A mortally wounded soldier stumbles into Johnny's camp. Before he dies, he says only one thing: "Fort Concho." Johnny rides to the fort and discovers it empty of soldiers. The sole survivor is a coward who hid during the fighting and survived--knowing Indians do not harm the mentally infirm--by pretending to be crazy. Before Johnny can leave, he's captured by Kiowas who plan to torture him to death.

Yuma tries to saves a very ill family against a mob lead by a townsman who's calling it diphtheria, and wants to burn them out.

Realizing Yuma is literate and in admiration of his ability to stand up to illiterate Armbruster family, Liam O'Shea offers Yuma a temporary schoolmaster job and he gains the affection of Peggy of which Troy Armbruster is jealous.

After Yuma kills a man in self defense, he finds himself in the position of having to mediate between the man's dangerously defensive widow and his associates who include his employer and co-workers.

Yuma becomes the leader teenage gang that plans to rob a bank, with the full intention of making them decide not to go through with it.

Johnny Yuma fulfills a promise made to a dying Union soldier. He rides into Lassiter City to return a keepsake medal to the boy's family. The mother proudly receives the medal and then asks Yuma to stay on as a cowhand.

Yuma arrives in a town in which the local editor checks guns and, when he checks Johnny's, one is discovered missing. It is learned Ted Keller has taken the gun to settle a perceived injustice to his father.

A Confederate colonel and two of his marauders live in seclusion to avoid consequences of the war but the two marauders kidnap a banker's daughter and send Yuma to collect the ransom.

Glory, a saloon girl, has been banished from town for murder without trial. Yuma offers to help her but while in town he runs afoul of Emma Longdon who has falsely accused Glory to keep her from her brother Don.

Yuma rescues old Sam Amister from thieves and takes him to his hometown where Yuma learns Amister is hated for grave robbery but Yuma expects there is more to his grave digging than just stealing valuables.

Yuma finds items on a dead horse and brings them to the home indicated, where he is arrested by the Sheriff for suspected murder. He is cleared but remains to defend the Mexican boy then held for the crime and being railroaded by the deputy.

Yuma brings old farmer Frank Gottwald a document proving he's right in his land dispute with Dan Hauser. But since Gottwald lacks money for an appeal, and despite his bad heart, he agrees to Hauser's deal to walk his entire land in the hot sun---which could prove fatal.

Snake bit, Yuma collapses at the home of a marshal who's been targeted by hired killers. He is taken in by the marshal's wife and son. But when they are both gone, the marshal's deputy, Roader, kills the marshal on his return home and frames Yuma.

Yuma finds a trapper caught in a bear trap and takes him to cabin where he discovers the man's blind daughter who mistakes him for an enemy until the actual brigands come to steal pelts meant to pay for the woman's eye operation.

Johnny, badly wounded, is taken to the town of Tremblor, where the doctor saves his arm. But why is the doctor being kept in a jail cell?

Yuma gets involved at a stagecoach station when prejudice toward a Chinese father and daughter becomes physical. He assists again as thieves attempt to steal a dowry for the daughter's arranged marriage.

When a sweetheart of Johnny's youth is dying, her husband, a former Union officer for whom she betrayed Yuma, seeks out Yuma so Johnny can say that he forgives the woman and assuage her guilt.

Charlie Burton summons Yuma and three other members of a rebel raiding party in which his son was killed. He informs them that he is giving them a gold mine in the Mojave Desert in memory of his son. But mistrust and murder ensue.

Johnny intervenes when fanatical Ezra Taber and his son harass, torment and terrorize a widow because of her former career as a dance hall girl.

Yuma arrives a year after being summoned by Ted Evans, a drummer from his Confederate regiment, to find the man addicted to pain medication and acts to help Evans break the habit while experiencing interference from an unscrupulous druggist.

Jeremy Hake receives a double blow of bad news---that his mine is worthless, and that his family is in need. Hake commits murder in a robbery attempting to help his family. Hake asks Yuma to surrender him for the reward offered for the murder and give the money to his family.

Rancher Bull Hollingsworth commissions Yuma to make a man out of his sheltered son, Seldon.

Yuma finds himself in the midst of a confrontation between a sheep man haunted by war memories and Mexican bandits.

Yuma's friend Jim Colburn has been found innocent of a murder for which he was to hang. Before the news of his innocence arrived, Colburn escaped from jail with a posse unaware of his innocence in pursuit.

Yuma escorts young Demetria to an arranged marriage after her family escorts are killed by Apaches. On the way, she starts to express feelings for Yuma, which begins to trouble him.

Yuma witnesses as Roy Shandell murders his partner to keep the money from a stage robbery. Yuma nabs Shandell and delivers him to the Socorro jail but Shandell's father uses nitroglycerin to force the son's release.

Yuma is chosen by an esteemed but unethical itinerant actress to take part in her performance. While Yuma and she dispute wages, they are kidnapped by a man who demands that the actress performs for his traumatized daughter.

Yuma arrives in a town in which an old friend of his father is sheriff. He learns an advance team of marauders, including the man who killed Yuma's father, has arrived. But none of townspeople, including the sheriff, want to defend the town.