Larry McMurtry's Dead Man's Walk tells how the great Lonesome Dove saga first began.

In the Texas Republic at a time when three cultures: Anglo, Hispanic and Comanche, were in furious conflict over the same harsh land a young Augustus McCrae (David Arquette) and Woodrow Call (Jonny Lee Miller) are young Rangers. Ripe for adventure they head off into the dangerous and forbidding territory with the Texas-Sante Fe expedition under the leadership of land pirate and soldier Caleb Cobb.

The Rangers suffer at the hands of treacherous leadership and soon encounter the Comanche war chief Buffalo Hump and the silent Apache, Gomez.