Home on the Range

In 1889, amidst the Old West, wanted cattle rustler Alameda Slim depletes almost all cattle from the Dixon Ranch, leaving only a single show cow, Maggie. The ranch owner, Abner Dixon, sells her to a kind woman named Pearl Gesner, who runs a small farm called Patch of Heaven. Sam Brown, the local Sheriff, arrives to tell Pearl that unless she pays back the bank in three days, her farm will be sold to the highest bidder. Hearing this, Maggie convinces farm cows Grace and Mrs. Calloway to go to town with her to win prize money at a fair. While the cows are in town, a bounty hunter named Rico drops off a criminal, collects their reward, and looks for a replacement horse while his rests. Idolizing him, Sam's horse, Buck, convinces Rico to take him. Upon seeing this and learning the reward for capturing Slim will cover Pearl's debt, Maggie convinces the other cows to help her collect the reward to save Patch of Heaven. That night, they hide among a large herd of steers as they are approached by two longhorns Barry and Bob. Slim arrives on the back of his bison Junior with his nephews, the Willies. Before Maggie can attack him, Slim starts yodeling, which puts all of the cattle except the tone-deaf Grace into a hypnotic trance, allowing Slim to lead them away. Grace brings Maggie and Mrs. Calloway back to their senses, before Slim uses a landslide to cover his escape. Narrowly missing him, Rico and his men discuss their next move, while Buck argues with the cows, with Rico mistakenly believing he is skittish around cows and has him returned to Sam. However, Buck escapes, determined to capture Slim for himself to prove his worth. The cows continue their search in the hopes of capturing Slim before Buck, until they lose Buck's trail during a flash flood and have a falling out, with Mrs. Calloway believing Maggie only wants revenge and Patch of Heaven would be better off without her. Along the way, the cows are joined by a peg-legged jackrabbit named Lucky Jack, who also lost his home, an old mine, to Slim. The cows decide to follow him, with Mrs. Calloway and Maggie making a deal that after the farm is saved, they will go their separate ways. With Lucky Jack's help, the cows discover Slim converted the mine into his hideout and stole cattle from his former patrons to render them unable to support their land. When the subsequent auctions occur, he then disguises himself as respectable businessman "Yancy O'Dell" to buy their land using the money he makes from selling off the stolen cattle. The cows and Jack capture Slim, and rush back to Patch of Heaven, with the Willies and Rico in pursuit. Learning Rico works for Slim, a devastated Buck helps the cows fight him, setting the stolen cattle free in the process. Slim escapes and dons his disguise to buy Patch of Heaven, but the cows catch up to him and join forces with Buck, Jack, and the rest of Patch of Heaven's farm animals to defeat and expose him. As Sam arrests Slim, Pearl uses the reward money to save her farm. At first, Mrs. Calloway, who had come to like Maggie, and Grace are sad that Maggie had seemingly left, but their spirits are lifted when they see that Maggie decided to stay. Maggie, Mrs. Calloway, Grace, and the rest of the farm animals then won prizes as show livestock in the State Fair. The three cows, along with Barry, Bob, and Junior, celebrate with a square dance.

Plot from Home on the Range (2004 film)CC BY-SA 4.0