Bad Company

The soldiers arrive at the modest white Dixon home and drag the boy away, even as he resists. Mrs. Dixon pleads that she has already lost one son to the war, but the soldiers press on. Before leaving, the Dixons give Drew $100 and share his brother's watch as keepsakes, urging him to go West.

In St. Joseph, Jake Rumsey pistol-whips Drew in an alley and takes some of his money. He later appears at Reverend Clum's house to return a purse, hoping for a reward, but proceeds to pilfer more household items while inside. Drew confronts him, attacks, and forces him to back down.

After a tense confrontation, Jake convinces Drew there is no choice but to join his gang. He introduces Drew to Jim Bob and Loney Logan, Arthur Simms, and Boog Bookin, a crew of frontier thieves. The six boys settle into a pattern of petty crime as they head West.

To prove his usefulness, Drew claims he robbed a hardware store, but in truth he has only stashed $12 in his boot. The deception cements his hold over the gang and masks his mounting lies. The gang continues its precarious crime spree as they ride toward the West.

At night, the six boys sit around a campfire and read Jane Eyre aloud. They shoot a rabbit and barely kill it, a moment that reveals their rough, survivalist bond. Jake demonstrates how to skin the rabbit, hinting at the harsher skills they are beginning to adopt.

The next day, a settler and his wife Min pass by, offering Min for ten dollars to anyone who will keep her company. Drew declines, citing his morals, while the others weigh the opportunity against their desperate circumstances. The moment underlines the fragile ethics of the gang on the frontier.

Big Joe and his thugs raid the sleeping boys, executing a brutal ambush. Jake aims at Big Joe but cannot bring himself to fire, letting the raid unfold. The gang suffers as Arthur bolts with a stagecoach and Boog is killed while fleeing with a pie.

The gang falls apart when the Logan brothers rob Jake and Drew, taking Jake's brother's watch and their horses, leaving them with only a mule. Stripped of resources, Jake and Drew wander the plains, their camaraderie fraying under pressure. The frontier crime spree collapses into scattered pursuit and survival.

The Logan brothers are found dead, their bodies hanging from a tree, signaling the brutal toll of their path. Big Joe's gang raids the area, and Hobbs leads the attack as Jake and Drew fight back, killing four thugs. In the chaos, Drew notices a hole in his boot revealing a hidden $10 bill and realizes he has been lying about the hardware store robbery; Jake pistol-whips him and takes the money.

Drew awakens to smoke on the horizon and discovers a barn burning during a raid by Big Joe. A Joe henchman confirms that Jake has joined Big Joe's gang, deepening Drew's guilt over their lies. He is nearly hanged for taking part in the raid, and the revelation drives him toward new steps.

Shaken but resolve remains, Drew joins a posse to get revenge on Jake. They track down Big Joe's gang and capture them, with Drew assigned to guard Jake during the tense confrontation. Jake proposes to split $1,000 they supposedly buried, and Drew helps him escape, only to discover the money never existed.

In the final scene, the two boys approach a town together, and Jake asks how Jane Eyre ends. Drew answers that it ends fine, then they stride into Wells Fargo and rob the bank, sealing their pact and their fate.