American Primeval (2025)
Betty Gilpin is Sara Rowell, heading West with her son Devin for a new life in Crooked Springs, Utah, where his father lives.
It’s going to be a rough trip through a rough territory, locked in conflict between the Native Americans, the Mormons and U.S. government.
And she’s going to need a capable guide.
But she arrives at Fort Bridger three weeks late and learns her guide has already left. No one else is willing to take the job.
So she decides to travel along with a small group of Mormon families, including newly married Jacob Pratt (Dane DeHann) and his wife Abish (Saura Lightfoot-Leon).
The Pratts have an agreement to travel West as part of a non-Mormon wagon train. The wagon train boss defies a demand from the Mormon militia that they turn around and head back East, that they aren’t welcome in Utah.
Turns out, they won’t be there long. The wagon train comes under attack by a mixed band of Paiute Indians and hooded white men. Few survive.
Abish is among them, taken captive by the Paiutes. So is Jacob, though he’s scalped alive. So are Sara and her son, who dash off, accompanied by a mute runaway Indian girl named Two Moons (Shawnee Pourier).
That trio winds up being saved by Isaac Reed (Taylor Kitsch). He’s ultimately convinced to help them reach Crooked Springs.
What he doesn’t know is that Sara Rowell is really Sara Holloway, a woman who killed a man in self-defense back in Philadelphia.
Self-defense or not, there’s a $1,500 bounty on her head. Just the “gold” for which some cutthroats would kill.