“among the half-crumbled ruins of a great and dying empire…”

Like the folk of Middle-Earth, the people of the Middle Ages saw among them vast relics of vanished civilizations.

Captain Vance Britton (Reagan) is commander of a force of “Texas dragoons” that are causing havoc for the Union forces. Some clever boy in Washington has suggested offering a bounty to the Apaches for running down the annoying Rebels. The locals consider this a Bad Idea, as they have only recently got the Apaches to stop killing white men. Chief Grey Cloud, a former Army officer and adopted Apache persuades Victorio, Cochise, and Mangas Colorado to stay out of the white men’s fight.

There are various complications: the new Union commander is Col. Jeb Britton, Vance Britton’s brother; Vance’s ex-sweetheart, Julie, is married to slimy Indian trader Sam McQuade, who sells poison whiskey and defective hunting rifles. Vance wants to jack a Union gold shipment from California.

McQuade is killed by some young Apaches (one is Geronimo), who are arrested. It all ends in a big garboil – Vance’s Rebels slip into town to grab the gold just as the Apaches roll up to demand the release of Geronimo and his friends.

The problem might have been talked out, but a dumb fat guy shoots Grey Cloud, and the Apaches attack, with the Rebels joining in the defense. The Apaches get Geronimo out and break off. (The fat guy gets shot, very explicitly. This is one of a number of movies from that period in which Indians kill white men who have it coming.)

Nothing’s really resolved at the end, except that Julie is now free to marry her true love.