The Searchers

To that of his brother Aaron and his immediate family, Ethan Edwards has finally returned "home" to west Texas, three years after the end of the Civil War, the reason for his initial absence. Where he has been in the intervening time is unspoken, indication, from his newly pressed gold coins and a medal, being that he has been a soldier of fortune fighting in Mexico. When cattle have been poached from the neighboring Jorgensen ranch, Captain Samuel Clayton of the Texas Rangers, he also the area ordained preacher, leads a band of deputized men for the sole purpose of locating and bringing to justice the perpetrators, Ethan who accompanies them, however unwilling to be deputized in his continuing allegiance to the Confederacy. It isn't until it is too late that they come to the realization that the poaching was a ploy by the Comanches to lure the men away, the true targets being human ones at either the Jorgensen and/or Edwards ranches in retaliation. They return to find that the entire Edwards family and the home has been wiped out, with the indication that Aaron and his wife Martha's two daughters, teenage Lucy and adolescent Debbie, have been abducted. Out of circumstance, Ethan is in it for the long haul to locate his two nieces, the only other person in that same position, much to Ethan's chagrin, being Martin Pawley, who Aaron and Martha long ago unofficially adopted and whose position Ethan does not like not only in not truly being a blood relation but acting as if he is so, but being one-eighth native (Cherokee), people that Ethan abhors, especially the Comanches. In Ethan and Martin's absence, their primary touchstone to home are the Jorgensens, especially for Martin in he and the Jorgensens' daughter, Laurie, long having been in love, with their differences in how they express or don't express that love jeopardizing their relationship. The longer it takes for Ethan and Martin to locate Lucy and Debbie, the more their mission may diverge in Ethan prioritizing between his commitment to blood, and his hatred for the Comanches, who he would like to decimate.