While working at a construction site in Utah, Kimble convinces his supervisor, Buck Harmon, to hire Jamie, a mentally disabled but physically strong young man, to help out. Because Jamie is an easy target for the taunts of the other work crew members, Kimble becomes Jamie's protector. When Jamie is accused of sexually assaulting Buck's wife, he becomes frightened and runs away. The crew foreman, Dan Pike, convinces Buck to organize a posse to hunt down Jamie and kill him.

While working as a research technician for the wealthy Allan Pruitt, Kimble gets involved in the business of Allan's teenage daughter, Janice, who returns home after spending a year in a mental hospital recovering from a nervous breakdown after witnessing a young boy under her care get killed by two vicious stray dogs. But Allan's new wife, Dorina, does not take a liking to Janice and plots to drive her insane by hiring a neighbor to make his pet dogs bark in the nearby woods and convince Janice that the dogs are alive (they were captured and put to sleep by the local dog catcher.) But when Kimble claims that he has heard the dogs barking, Dorina asks the local sheriff to investigate Kimble to find any dirt on him.