Plot

A Civil War veteran agrees to deliver a girl taken by the Kiowa people years ago to her aunt and uncle against her will. They travel hundreds of miles and face grave dangers as they search for a place that either can call home.

Five years after the end of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Tom Hanks), a veteran of three wars, now moves from town to town as a non-fiction storyteller, sharing the news of presidents and queens, glorious feuds, devastating catastrophes, and gripping adventures from the far reaches of the globe. On the plains of Texas, he crosses paths with Johanna (Helena Zengel), a 10-year-old taken in by the Kiowa people six years earlier and raised as one of their own. Johanna, hostile to a world she's never experienced, is being returned to her biological aunt and uncle against her will. Kidd agrees to deliver the child where the law says she belongs. As they travel hundreds of miles into the unforgiving wilderness, the two will face tremendous challenges of both human and natural forces as they search for a place that either can call home.—Universal Pictures

Five years after the end of the Civil War, Capt. Jefferson Kyle Kidd crosses paths with a 10-year-old girl taken by the Kiowa people. Forced to return to her aunt and uncle, Kidd agrees to escort the child across the harsh and unforgiving plains of Texas. However, the long journey soon turns into a fight for survival as the traveling companions encounter danger at every turn -- both human and natural.—devoncall-73586

Wandering from town to town, only five years after the end of the Civil War, the grizzled former Confederate Army officer, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, travels the dusty and dangerous roads of 1870 Texas to make a living. For the price of a dime, gentle Kyle, dressed in his impeccable suit, informs and entertains the people, reading the latest news and recounting captivating stories of exotic, far-off places from his pile of newspapers, knowing, however, that some wounds never heal. Then, on one of his travels, the irresistible storyteller comes across the gruesome scene of a murder, and encounters the abducted ten-year-old orphan, Johanna: now, the proud daughter of the Kiowa nomadic warriors, Turning Water and Three Spotted. To reunite the savage girl with her only surviving kin, patient Jefferson is willing to brave the perils of the long journey back and risk life and limb for twice-orphaned Johanna. But, amid harsh territories once divided by war, what will it take to find this orphan a home?—Nick Riganas

In 1870, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Tom Hanks), a former Confederate officer who served in the 3rd Texas Infantry, makes a meager living traveling from town to town in Texas and reading newspapers to local residents for an admission fee of ten cents. After departing Wichita Falls, Kidd comes across an overturned wagon on the road and finds the driver, a black freedman, had been lynched. He also finds a young white girl who calls herself Cicada and speaks Kiowa. Kidd learns from the girl's paperwork that she is Johanna Leonberger (Helena Zengel), who had been kidnapped and adopted by Kiowa six years earlier. Union Army troops discovered Joanna while dispersing a Kiowa camp and she was being taken to her living aunt and uncle by the freedman. A passing Union Army patrol instructs Kidd to take the girl to Union officials at an outpost in a town up the road. Kidd has little choice but to acquiesce.

At the town, Kidd is informed that the outpost's Bureau of Indian Affairs representative will be unavailable for three months. Kidd initially plans to leave Johanna in the care of friends Simon (Ray McKinnon) and Doris Boudlin (Mare Winningham) but accepts responsibility for returning the girl to her family in Castroville, some 400 miles away, after she recklessly tries to run away with a band of traveling Native Americans during a storm. Simon gives Kidd his sidearm and 20 bullets, while Kidd already has his shotgun, but with bird-shot. It is just after the US civil war. The North has won and is abolishing slavery, which the southern folks are not willing accept. After 6 days the duo reaches Dallas. And they have several weeks of hiking ahead of them. The Indians are killing the whites for taking their land. and the whites are killing the Indians to take their land.

In Dallas, Kidd stops at a local inn run by Ella Gannett (Elizabeth Marvel), an old acquaintance who speaks Kiowa and learns that Johanna's adoptive Native American family was also killed, making her "an orphan twice-over." After reading the news the next night, Kidd and Johanna are accosted by three ex-Confederate soldiers who want to purchase Johanna from him. Kidd refuses and flees with the girl, but the men pursue him into the wilderness. Despite being outgunned (Kidd and Johanna are forced to abandon their carriage and head to higher ground on a nearby hilltop to get an advantage over their attackers), Kidd is able to kill the men after Johanna points out that the dimes Kidd earned from his work could be used as makeshift ammunition for his shotgun.

On the border of Erath County, Kidd and Johanna are detained by militiamen led by Farley (Thomas Francis Murphy), a racist cattle baron who took over the county and had all non-white residents violently expelled. Kidd says that he is a newsreader that travels from town to town. Farley coerces Kidd into reading propaganda that glorifies him to his workers, but Kidd instead reads a story about a disaster in a Pennsylvania coal mine that whips Farley's workers into a rebellious fury. Kidd and Johanna make a run for it in the ensuing melee but are surrounded by Farley and his men. Just as Farley is about to shoot Kidd, Johanna kills Farley with Kidd's shotgun, and John Calley (Fred Hechinger), one of Farley's henchmen who was inspired by Kidd's words, deals with the other henchmen.

As the pair continue their journey, their wagon is wrecked, and their last horse fatally injured when Kidd loses control on a steep road. Kidd shoots the horse to give it the release of death. Kidd and Johanna proceed on foot. After enduring the heat and a blinding sandstorm, they encounter a traveling group of Kiowa who give Johanna a horse. Saved by that gift, Kidd and Johanna eventually reach the Leonberger farmstead. Kidd reluctantly leaves Johanna with her aunt and uncle. They offer to pay him, but Kidd asks them to buy books for Johanna instead, so she can learn to read.

He then continues to San Antonio to visit the grave of his wife Maria, who had died of cholera while he was away serving in the Army, for the first time. As he bids farewell to Maria, Kidd realizes that Johanna had become family to him, and rides back to her and apologizes for leaving her behind. Johanna's aunt and uncle permit Kidd to raise Johanna (as she couldn't work on the farm and kept trying to run away). Later, Captain Kidd enthusiastically reads the news to an animated crowd in a large hall with Johanna's assistance, and Kidd introduces her as his daughter, Johanna Kidd.