| Director | Tommy Lee Jones |
|---|---|
| Budget | $16 million |
| Box office | $8.2 million |
In 1854, Mary Bee Cuddy, a 31-year-old unmarried teacher from New York, came to the Great Plains for more opportunities. In the small farming community of Loup in the Nebraska Territory she owns sizable property and is financially secure. Though she seems strong and independent, she has depression and feels isolated. She invites her neighbor Bob Giffen for dinner and proposes marriage, but he turns her down, saying she is plain-looking and too bossy. He leaves to find a wife back east.
After a harsh winter, three women in the community show signs of prairie madness. Arabella Sours has lost three children to diphtheria, and Gro Svendsen, a Danish immigrant in an abusive marriage, breaks down after her mother dies. Theoline Belknap kills her own child after a poor harvest. Reverend Dowd calls upon one of their husbands to escort the women east to the Lady's Aid Society Methodist Church in Hebron, Iowa, which cares for the mentally ill. Theoline's husband Vester refuses to participate in the lottery to decide who will escort the women; Cuddy takes his place, and the lot falls on her.
While preparing for the trip, Cuddy encounters George Briggs, a claim jumper, who has been left on horseback with a noose around his neck for stealing Bob Giffen's land in his absence. Scared to make the trip alone, she frees him, on the condition that he helps escort the women. He immediately casts doubt on the job and insists he be free to abandon her at any time. To persuade him, Cuddy tells him she will mail $300 to await his arrival in Iowa, but she secretly keeps it with her.
The group crosses paths with hostile Pawnee. Briggs bribes them by giving up Cuddy's horse. Later, Arabella is kidnapped. Briggs gives chase, and the two men scuffle before Arabella kills her kidnapper. Eventually, the group reaches the grave of an 11-year-old girl which has been desecrated by Indians. Cuddy insists they stop and restore it, but Briggs vows to push on, so Cuddy stays behind, saying she will catch up with them. After restoring the grave, Cuddy sets out on horseback but loses her way. After riding all night she finds herself back at the grave and realizes she has gone in a circle.
Finally catching up to Briggs after another night of riding, Cuddy, distraught over having to wander the prairie, suggests they marry. Briggs declines, saying he "ain't no farmer". On the same night, Cuddy asks Briggs to sleep with her, which he does reluctantly. The next morning, Briggs finds Cuddy dead, having hanged herself. Briggs chastises Sours, Belknap, and Svendsen, blaming their illness for Cuddy's death as he buries her body. He finds the $300, takes a horse, and abandons the three women. However, the trio follows him on foot, and Arabella almost drowns while chasing him across a river. Briggs saves her and decides to go on to Iowa.
They reach an empty hotel. The proprietor, Irishman Aloysius Duffy, says they have no rooms available as a group of 16 investors is expected shortly, and the women would sour the establishment. Briggs lashes out at Duffy, whose men pull out their guns, resulting in a brief stand-off. Briggs leaves, but returns that night alone on horseback. He sends away the young cook, sets the hotel on fire, and shoots Duffy in the foot. Briggs takes a suckling pig to feed himself and the women and leaves all inside the hotel to be burned alive.
Briggs reaches Hebron, passing the women into the care of Altha Carter, the reverend's wife. He informs her of Cuddy's death but does not disclose the cause. Feeling guilty about rejecting her marriage proposal, he has a wooden slab engraved with her name, planning to mark her grave with it. He discovers that his $300 is worthless, the Bank of Loup having failed since they left. He gives a pair of shoes to Tabitha Hutchinson, a hard-working young maid at the hotel where he is staying, and then proposes to her, after advising her not to marry some young man going west, but to stay in town. She replies, "Maybe." He then boards the open-decked river ferry heading back west, where he sings a rowdy song with two musicians on deck. Briggs fires his pistol and shouts at people on the pier who complain about the noise. Eventually, one of the bargemen kicks Cuddy's wooden grave marker off the edge of the deck into the river; unnoticed by Briggs, it floats away.