The Gunman From Bodie

Put-upon lawman John Dorsey is on the verge of losing his wife and his job as sheriff, so he posses up with bullish U.S. Marshall Butch Hayden to hold outlaw Emily Rusk hostage. A battle of wills ensues as Emily turns the posse on themselves, but as her marauding husband and his gang approach, Emily and John realize they will need each other to survive.

Jake Remy leads a gang of outlaw cutthroats making their escape toward Mexico from a successful robbery. Barring their way is a river--crossable only by means of a ferry barge. The barge operator, Travis, refuses to be bullied into providing transport for the gang and escapes across river with most of the local populace--leaving Remy and his gang behind, desperately seeking a way across. A river-wide stand-off begins between the gang and the townspeople, both groups of which have left people on the wrong side of the river.

A man in search of revenge infiltrates a ranch, hidden in an inhospitable region, where its owner, Altar Keane, gives shelter to outlaws fleeing from the law in exchange for a price.

Hud Bannon is a ruthless young man who tarnishes everything and everyone he touches. Hud represents the perfect embodiment of alienated youth, out for kicks with no regard for the consequences. There is bitter conflict between the callous Hud and his stern and highly principled father, Homer. Hud's nephew Lon admires Hud's cheating ways, though he soon becomes too aware of Hud's reckless amorality to bear him anymore. In the world of the takers and the taken, Hud is a winner. He's a cheat, but, he explains, "I always say the law was meant to be interpreted in a lenient manner."

A cattle-vs.-sheepman feud loses Connie Dickason her fiance, but gains her his ranch, which she determines to run alone in opposition to Frank Ivey, "boss" of the valley, whom her father Ben wanted her to marry. She hires recovering alcoholic Dave Nash as foreman and a crew of Ivey's enemies. Ivey fights back with violence and destruction, but Dave is determined to counter him legally... a feeling not shared by his associates. Connie's boast that, as a woman, she doesn't need guns proves justified, but plenty of gunplay results.

The murder of her father sends a teenage tomboy on a mission of 'justice', which involves avenging her father's death. She recruits a tough old marshal, 'Rooster' Cogburn because he has 'true grit', and a reputation of getting the job done.