Plot
The story begins with a naked woman in the middle of nowhere, obviously under duress. She falls after being shot. A mysterious man walks up behind her and executes her with a pistol.
The story then shifts to Diana Kelper, a young and beautiful dancer starting a new job at a nightclub. She's lured to a small town in New Mexico with promises by club owner Jack to pay her well for performing on stage at his club with later prospects of working in Las Vegas. Fred, Jack's agent, pays for her airfare, puts her up in a motel, takes her driver's license, charges her back for his expenses with interest, and threatens her references should she flee. Unable to make enough money dancing, she falls deeper into debt until she is forced into prostitution. Soliciting her first "client" Colin Mandle, she gets in his jeep but at the last minute she changes her mind, only for Mandle to choke her unconscious.
Diana wakes up completely naked in a field. She spots an airplane nearby and walks towards it. As she gets closer, she sees Mandle stowing his hunting gear, so she hides behind a tree trunk. Hearing her approach, he tells her that he's giving her a fifteen-minute start. He fires a bolt near her as a warning and she turns and runs into the wilderness.
The boomtown population is highly transient and it's not unusual for people to go missing. However, Dwight Terry, a recently hired sheriff deputy—who had been forced to leave a previous police job due to arresting too prominent a person—is concerned about the disappearance of Diana (and other women from the club), and begins to question Jack. Jack denies any involvement, saying he has enough trouble getting girls to perform at his club.
Dwight begins to question the club owner's business, but is warned off by Sheriff Tom Benike. He realizes that he's on his own in solving the case. His wife is similarly unsupportive, fearing he might lose his job over "some slut." He breaks into Mandle's home, whom he suspects of being responsible for the disappearances. He is stopped by Benike, who had been alerted to a possible break-in by a neighbor.
Diana is spotted by Mandle multiple times but she manages to lose him over and over. He even shoots a rattlesnake before it can strike her, denying her the "easy way out". She climbs up a cliff. Mandle sees her and begins to climb up after her. As he reaches the top, she appears holding a large rock over her head, which she throws down on Mandle, causing him to fall.
She stumbles upon a man and his two sons who are out hiking. Diana collapses, unable to speak. The father takes her to their tent, where she falls asleep. He sees her wounds and realizes that something happened to her. After praying with his sons and leaving them in charge of the camp, he leaves to seek help.
Meanwhile, Mandle has regained consciousness and resumes his hunt, following Diana to the camp. After unsuccessfully attempting to persuade the boys to allow him to take Diana with him (ostensibly to fly her to the hospital in his plane), Mandle kills them both. Diana takes Mandle's gun and tries to shoot him, only to discover it's uncocked. He advances on her, but Diana stabs him in the leg, bites his ear off, and runs off again, finding the father's corpse along the way.
Diana finds a road and is hit by two young men driving a van. Following a brief skirmish, she manages to run down and finally kill Mandle with the van. After driving back into town, she is taken to a hospital, but the experience has traumatized her so much that she is left much like a dangerous animal, wary of human kindness. Dwight brings her flowers and is told that she's chewed through her restraints and escaped.
Ten months later, posing as a prostitute, Diana lures a man and kills him, stepping out of his car and walking away. A news report attributes the resulting dozens of killings of sex offenders to a Vigilante dubbed "The Southwest Slayer."
