Rooster Cogburn

In Fort Smith, Arkansas, in the late 19th century, aging one-eyed U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn is stripped of his badge by Judge Parker due to his drunkenness and questionable use of firearms. When a shipment of highly explosive nitroglycerin is stolen from a transporting troop of United States Army cavalry by the ruthless bank robber Hawk and his gang of nine outlaws, Cogburn is given a chance to redeem himself. Alone, he enters the Indian Territory and tracks the bandits, who include Cogburn's former scout Breed, to the remote settlement of Fort Ruby, which is now a Christian mission. He comes upon the village the day after it has been overrun by the gang, who killed the elderly Reverend George Goodnight and a number of the local Indians. The only surviving inhabitants that have not fled are the Reverend's spinster daughter, Miss Eula Goodnight, and one of her Native students, a teenage boy named Wolf, whose family died in the attack. Cogburn tries to leave the pair at a nearby trading post, but they insist on coming with him to capture the bandits.