Die Anfängerin

In 1870, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Tom Hanks), a former Confederate officer who served in the 3rd Texas Infantry, makes a meager living traveling from town to town in Texas and reading newspapers to local residents for an admission fee of ten cents. Kidd is a well dressed and a well-spoken man. Back in those days, men and women used to work from sunrise to sundown and had no time to luxuries such as reading newspapers and that's where people like Kidd stepped in to provide this service. After departing Wichita Falls, North Texas, Kidd comes across an overturned wagon on the road and finds the driver, an African American freedman, had been lynched. He also finds a young white girl who calls herself Cicada and speaks Kiowa. At first the girl is petrified of Kidd and does not trust him. But soon, she realizes that Kidd means no harm. She agrees to go with him but refuses to trust him completely. Kidd learns from the girl's paperwork that she is Johanna Leonberger (Helena Zengel), who had been kidnapped and adopted by Kiowa six years earlier. Union Army troops discovered Joanna while dispersing a Kiowa camp and she was being taken to her living aunt and uncle by the freedman. A passing Union Army patrol instructs Kidd to take the girl to Union officials at an outpost in a town up the road. Kidd has little choice but to acquiesce. At the town, Kidd is informed that the outpost's Bureau of Indian Affairs representative will be unavailable for three months. As a result, Kidd is told that he would need to take Johanna to her home. Kidd initially plans to leave Johanna in the care of friends Simon (Ray McKinnon) and Doris Boudlin (Mare Winningham) but accepts responsibility for returning the girl to her family in Castroville, some 400 miles away, after she recklessly tries to run away with a band of traveling Native Americans during a storm. It is dangerous to travel such a long distance without an armed escort. Simon gives Kidd his sidearm and 20 bullets, while Kidd already has his shotgun, but only with bird-shot. Simon also provides some supplies to Kidd in a horse drawn carriage. Simon can see that Kidd's arms and joints are hurting and he is not built for such an arduous journey. It is just after the US civil war. The North has won and is abolishing slavery, which the southern folks are not willing accept. The other amendments to Constitution include the right to vote for former slaves, and for Texas to repay its war debt. After 6 days the duo reaches Dallas. And they have several weeks of hiking ahead of them. The Pacific Railroad committee has just approved a new line that runs from the Kansas border to Galveston Texas. This is the first railway line that will run through the Indian reservation. The Indians are killing the whites for taking their land, and the whites are killing the Indians to take their land. In Dallas, Kidd stops at a local inn run by Ella Gannett (Elizabeth Marvel), an old acquaintance who speaks Kiowa and learns that Johanna's adoptive Native American family was also killed, making her "an orphan twice-over." After reading the news the next night, Kidd and Johanna are accosted by three ex-Confederate soldiers who want to purchase Johanna from him. Kidd refuses and flees with the girl, but the men pursue him into the wilderness. Kidd and Johanna are forced to abandon their carriage and head to higher ground on a nearby hilltop to get an advantage over their attackers. Despite being outgunned Kidd is able to kill the men after Johanna points out that the dimes Kidd earned from his work could be used as makeshift ammunition for his shotgun. On the border of Erath County, Kidd and Johanna are detained by militiamen led by Farley (Thomas Francis Murphy), a racist cattle baron who took over the county and had all non-white residents violently expelled. Kidd says that he is a newsreader that travels from town to town. Farley coerces Kidd into reading propaganda that glorifies him to his workers, but Kidd instead reads a story about a disaster in a Pennsylvania coal mine that whips Farley's workers into a rebellious fury. Kidd and Johanna make a run for it in the ensuing melee but are surrounded by Farley and his men. Just as Farley is about to shoot Kidd, Johanna kills Farley with Kidd's shotgun, and John Calley (Fred Hechinger), one of Farley's henchmen who was inspired by Kidd's words, deals with the other henchmen. As the pair continue their journey, their wagon is wrecked, and their last horse fatally injured when Kidd loses control on a steep road. Kidd shoots the horse to give it the release of death. Kidd and Johanna proceed on foot. After enduring the heat and a blinding sandstorm, they encounter a traveling group of Kiowa who give Johanna a horse. Saved by that gift, Kidd and Johanna eventually reach the Leonberger farmstead. Kidd reluctantly leaves Johanna with her aunt and uncle. They offer to pay him, but Kidd asks them to buy books for Johanna instead, so she can learn to read. He then continues to San Antonio to visit the grave of his wife Maria, who had died of cholera while he was away serving in the Army, for the first time. As he bids farewell to Maria, Kidd realizes that Johanna had become family to him, and rides back to her and apologizes for leaving her behind. Johanna's aunt and uncle permit Kidd to raise Johanna (as she couldn't work on the farm and kept trying to run away). Anna and Wilhelm, though not uncaring, had her tied to a post to prevent Johanna from running away. They permit Johanna to go with Kidd, with whom she is clearly much happier after Kidd had recently learned how to speak Kiowa. Later, Captain Kidd enthusiastically reads the news to an animated crowd in a large hall with Johanna's assistance, and Kidd introduces her as his daughter, Johanna Kidd.