Bowie, a young man convicted of murder when a teenager and Chicamaw, an old lag, escape from a Mississippi prison in 1936 and join up with another old lag, T-Dub, who has hired a cab to meet them. They hide out with an acquaintance, who owns a garage and set to work robbing banks. Here Bowie gets to talk to Keechie, the garageman's daughter. They next hole up with T-Dub's sister-in-law Mattie and her children, including her older daughter Lula, the object of T-Dub's lascivious attention.