While traveling though a small town in Arizona, Kimble is arrested by the brutal and sadistic Sheriff Jo Bob Sims whom has political ambitions. Sheriff Sims (unaware of Kimble's true identity) subjects him to slave labor with a group of other vagrants he arrests on a daily basis for no reason other than to torture or humiliate them. When Kimble witnesses Sims murder another prisoner and has the equally corrupt mayor and town council cover it up to look like an accident, Kimble becomes aware that his own life is in danger.

While working as a truck driver for a small freight company, Kimble discovers that his angry and bitter boss, Gus Hendrick, is being blackmailed by Lucia Mayfield, the wife of his late business partner, into paying her bills and for child support since Mr. Mayfield was killed a year earlier in a driving accident. But Kimble later learns that with Hendrick strapped for money, and Lucia merely squandering the blackmail money for her own selfish purposes, Hendrick plans to hijack one of his own trucks to collect an insurance settlement.

While working as a ranch hand on a California citrus farm, the owner, Leland Hagerman, suddenly dies in an accident and the man's racist and sadistic son, Blaine, arrives to stake his claim to the place and sees everyone as expendable, including Kimble whom must find a way to quietly slip away with the help of the Hispanic workers before Blaine stumbles upon his true identity.

Kimble reluctantly becomes involved with Stella Savano, the sister of George Savano, a mobster who runs the trucking company where Kimble works. Stella is an emotionally disturbed women with a dangerous attraction to Johnny, the adopted eight-year-old son of Jesse Stangel, Kimble's co-worker. Kimble learns that Stella is actually Johnny's mother. But Stella becomes so delusional that she thinks that Kimble is Johnny's father.

Kimble finds work as a construction worker in Nebraska where he is recongized by building contract; the unscrupulous Alex ""Pat"" Patton, who once built a theater in his home town. But a wall of the theater collapsed due to faulty construction which killed three children. Although exonerated of manslaughter charges, the townspeople have been irate to him ever since. Now two years later, Pat's company faces financial ruin, yet Pat pours his own money into a mysterious ""motel"" his crew is now building. Pat approaches Kimble and tells him that he knows who he is from a wanted poster he keeps in his office. He tells Kimble about his plight and that he has one month to live because he's dying from a heart condition. Pat wants Kimble to keep him alive long enough to finish the ""motel"" and if Kimble refuses to do so or flees, Pat will turn him in to the local authorities.