The Kentuckian

1820. Uneducated backwoods hunter/trapper Eli Wakefield is moving from Kentucky to Texas with his son Eli Jr. - the two referred to as Big Eli and Little Eli - and their hound Faro, their expectation that they will be able to have much the same life but better in a more wide open space. The move is also to escape the long standing feud with the Frome family. They have just enough money for the steamboat fares with some left over for seed money to set up in Texas. They plan to make a short stop in Humility to say hello to Big Eli's trading post owner older brother and sister-in-law, Zack and Sophie Wakefield. Their plans take a turn when they meet indentured servant Hannah Bolen, whose contract they purchase with most of their money to get her out of her indentured life, she who they ask to accompany them to Texas for that better life in the selfless help she provided in getting them out of a scrape. Their stop in Humility is longer than planned if only for them needing to earn back that money for the steamboat fares. Hannah, in her gratitude, plans without telling them that she will earn back that money for the two of them alone doing whatever required, she feeling she a burden to them moving on. Beyond Hannah's plan, things in Humility seem to be conspiring against them from ever leaving, from the doings of the brutal whip-cracking tavern owner Stan Bodine, to Zack secretly wanting them to stay for Big Eli to have that more conventional life working beside him in business, to they meeting local schoolmarm Susie Spann who mutually falls for Big Eli and who would arguably never move to Texas for various reasons. The problem of which Big Eli is somewhat unaware is that the longer they stay in Humility, the greater the likelihood that the Frome brothers, whose goal is to kill Big Eli, will catch up to them.