A single woman living in a frontier town is asked by her church to escort three women traumatised by the hardships of their lives to a safe refuge in the East. Along the way, she saves an outlaw's life and persuades him to help her protect her charges on the perilous journey through the wilderness. Western based on the novel by Glendon Swarthout, directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones, with Hilary Swank, Meryl Streep and Miranda Otto