In the small, friendly Oregon town of Lone Oak, seemingly untouched by time and the modern world, a fundamentalist minister thinks the town's secular activities have summoned the pale horse of the apocalypse.
Believing he's been called to become the town's savior, Reverend David Phillips strikes out at the scantily clad girls at track meets, the blasphemous talk among the town's eccentric cronies in the barber shop and gas station, and the growing population of Latinos, among whom he sees a teenage boy Jesus Martinez as the Antichrist.
The minister, empowered by his religious beliefs, is a terrifying force, but the townspeople are not powerless. Led by the town matriarch, Rachel Douglas, flinty granddaughter of the town's founder, and inspired by Cat Stanford, a gifted athlete whose running prowess unites them, the town resists the minister and his followers.
Will the town's fundamental goodwill and humanity be enough to withstand the minister's rigid and destructive fundamentalist beliefs? The pale horse, once called forth, cannot easily be recalled.