After four years of civil war, which they began as teenagers and ended as grown men, Jesse James and his gang return to their hometown of Liberty, Missouri. But the joy of reuniting with their families and Jesse's childhood sweetheart, Zee, is significantly disrupted by the machinations of a railroad tycoon who wants to steal the farmers' land for his tracks—if necessary, by force, carried out by the henchmen of Private Sheriff Allan Pinkerton. When Jesse James refuses to comply and responds to the Pinkerton men's vigilante justice with wit and daring, his family becomes the target of an attack. James, his brother Frank, the Younger brothers, and their longtime companion, Comanche Tom, decide to take revenge and, as the James-Younger Gang, begin robbing banks where the railroad company's funds are held. But as the railroad bosses' wealth dwindles and Jesse's reputation as a charismatic desperado grows, so does the bounty on his head—not to mention the hatred and envy of his enemies...