Two highway road workers spend the summer of 1988 away from their city lives. The isolated landscape becomes a place of misadventure as the men find themselves at odds with each other and the women they left behind.

Brady Hawkes, The Gambler, receives a letter from his son indicating he needs help. This sends Brady to the rescue. Along the way Brady meets up with Billy Montana, a young man who thinks he knows everything about playing cards. Brady teaches Billy a few lessons along the way and they end up forming a strong friendship and team up together.

Alameda Slim, a wanted cattle rustler, uses an alias to buy up properties all over western Nebraska, and his next target is the Patch of Heaven dairy farm, where the widow owner cares more for her 'family' of yard animals's welfare then for profit, so she just hasn't got the cash to keep in business. The other animals, mainly carefree youngsters, being unable, three cows of very different temperament and manners rise to the desperate occasion and set out to do battle for their dream home, teaming up unnaturally with each-other, the sheriff's megalomaniac horse and any other animal who can possibly help, even a crazy lucky rabbit and an invincible buffalo, hoping to beat the crook to the Patch's auction, or anything it takes...