Learning of his release, Foley hires a trio of young thugs—Pepe, Skeeter and Bobby Jay Jones—to track Lomax's movements.

Lomax locates an old friend, Trooper, a former U.S. Army cavalry soldier, now confined to a wheelchair, running a town saloon and offers him money for information about his ex-partner.

The thugs catch up to Lomax at Trooper's saloon and hotel and force Alma, a prostitute/saloon girl working for the gruff but kindly old soldier, to spend the night with them.

They wind up disturbing Lomax from his sleep with his old girlfriend Emma with the racket in the neighboring room, and have an altercation in the corridor.

But surprisingly, the conductor, Mr. Frenatore, brings out a 7-year-old girl, Decky Ortega, who had accompanied the woman on her train journey.

Meanwhile, the thugs mistreat and leave bruises on Alma, then vandalize the hotel/saloon as the old handicapped owner demands restitution.

During the journey to Gun Hill, Lomax and stubborn little Decky bond closer, especially after he throws her in a stream to wash and scrub her, then gently dries and warms her by the campfire.

Bobby Jay then gets drunk, knocks out Lomax and terrorizes the young mother by saying he was going to shoot a target off her son's head.

Lomax leaves the money with Foley and Bobby Jay's bodies, tells the housekeeper to go get the law, and then goes to find Decky back at Juliana's house.

Believing teaming with the director of True Grit, Henry Hathaway, along with the same producer (Hal B. Wallis) and screenwriter (Marguerite Roberts), would bring similar success, Peck started filming the project in 1970.

Michael Kerbel from The Village Voice wrote that Shoot Out did have some semblance of True Grit, "'but the humor and charm are missing and what remains - a predictable revenge story - becomes tiresome.

'"[5] Roger Greenspun of The New York Times observed that the film was "no more than another variation of the eternal tale of the Westerner (Gregory Peck) released from prison who seeks revenge on the pal who betrayed him but is himself pursued by a hired gang of maniacal killers until a showdown in which everybody gets his except Peck, who unaccountably gets marriage and a family.