Enviously capable of balancing out his rugged side with a sensitive note here or there, nobody calls themselves a “sodbuster,” “cowpuncher” or “saddle bum” quite like actor Sam Elliott.

In Conagher, the newest of the three titles that was originally made for TNT in 1991 and co-written by stars Elliott and Katharine Ross, Elliott plays “a right peace-loving man,” named Conn Conagher who falls in love with Ross’s widowed rancher Mrs. Teale.

After venturing from Missouri to go into the cattle business, Ross suffers an unbelievable hardship when her husband disappears and dies on the journey to create a livelihood for his wife and two children from his first marriage.

Left in the middle of nowhere with a stepson and daughter who miss their mother, Ross does the best she can serving food to patrons on the local stagecoach until the official station is built and taking up arms against the Apache when fired upon in a horrific blaze of gunfire.

Vowing to only marry again if it is for love, Mrs. Teale finds herself drawn to the loyal Conagher who takes her stepson under his wing in giving them advice and soon begins going out of his way to visit the Teales until he realizes – later than one would assume – just how much he cares for the matriarch.