On 12 November 1955 at 10:03pm, teenager Marty McFly reunites with young Doctor “Doc” Emmett Brown and announces that he is back from the future after time traveling. The next morning, Marty shows young Doc a letter sent from an older version of Doc who has time traveled back to 1885 and is living there now. In the letter, Doc says that his time machine was hit by lightning and can no longer fly, so he plans to stay in the Old West. He also writes that the time machine has been buried under the Delgado Mine and he’s sent a map so that Marty and young Doc can find and repair it. Doc instructs Marty to return to 1985 once the time machine is fixed and destroy the vehicle when he gets there. Lastly, Doc forbids Marty from returning to 1885 to retrieve him lest they further disturb the already altered space-time continuum. At the site where Marty and young Doc find the buried time machine, Marty notices an old gravestone with Doc’s name on it, stating that he was shot and killed by Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen on 7 September 1885. Marty takes a picture of the gravestone, and, later, procures Western clothing while young Doc fixes the time machine. Hoping to save Doc, Marty travels back to 2 September 1885, five days before Doc’s murder. As he arrives in the Old West, Marty hides the time machine in a cave, but is chased out by a bear. Marty falls and passes out on the property of Seamus McFly, Marty’s ancestor whom Marty closely resembles. When Marty wakes up inside the McFly home, Seamus’s wife, Maggie McFly, tends to him. Marty recognizes Maggie, who looks just like his mother Lorraine, and introduces himself as “Clint Eastwood.” In town the next day, Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen and his gang enter a saloon and bullies Marty, mistaking him for Seamus. Recognizing Doc’s future murderer, Marty addresses Tannen as “Mad Dog,” and Tannen becomes irate, shooting at Marty’s feet. Tannen tries to kill Marty, but runs out of bullets, and Marty flees with Tannen’s crew following on horseback. Doc arrives and saves Marty from being hanged by Tannen’s men. Tannen announces that Doc, the town blacksmith, owes him eighty dollars due to some shoddy horseshoe work. Doc refuses to pay, and Tannen says he will someday shoot Doc in the back. Afterward, Doc reprimands Marty for traveling to 1885 against his wishes, but Marty shows Doc a photograph of the gravestone he found, explaining why he had to save Doc. A woman named Clara also is named on the gravestone as Doc’s "beloved," but Doc swears he hasn’t formed any personal relationships so that the space-time continuum would not alter. Later that day, Mayor Hubert visits Doc’s shop to announce the arrival of a new schoolteacher, Clara Clayton, and he asks for Doc’s help in greeting her the following day. Although Marty believes Doc will fall in love with Clara, whose name is on the gravestone, Doc says he will send someone else to meet her in order to avoid a romantic entanglement. Making plans to travel back to 1985 together, Marty informs Doc that he tore the fuel line on the time machine. Doc panics because the engine requires gasoline, which is not available in 1885. Doc decides their only chance is to push the time machine with a train, but when Marty and Doc question a train engineer, he says the locomotive can only reach fifty-five miles per hour. Since the time machine needs to reach eighty-eight miles per hour to achieve time travel, Doc and Marty devise a scheme to commandeer the train, and, in order to gain the necessary speed, release all excess cars, driving it along a flat stretch of track that ends at an unfinished bridge jutting over a ravine. As they examine the unfinished bridge, Doc hears a woman calling for help from her horse-drawn carriage. Doc saves the woman from falling into the ravine and realizes that she is Clara Clayton, the new schoolteacher he was trying to avoid. Doc and Clara fall in love at first sight and agree to see each other again at the town festival that night. Later, as Doc and Clara dance at the festival, Tannen breaks in and knocks Clara to the ground after she kicks him. Tannen tries to shoot Doc, but Marty blocks the shot, prompting Tannen to challenge Marty to a gunfight the following Monday at 8am. Doc escorts Clara to her home where they discuss their mutual love of astronomy and Jules Verne before sharing a kiss. The next morning, Doc notices that the photograph of his future gravestone has altered; although the date of death is still visible, Doc’s name has vanished. Doc worries that Marty’s name might replace his, but Marty believes he will return to the future with Doc on Monday morning and avoid the gunfight altogether. Doc warns Marty about the problem he suffers from in the future, in which he makes bad decisions once anyone calls him a coward. Marty wants to know more about this "problem," but Doc says that no one should know too much about their future. As they work on the time machine, Doc says he wants to stay in 1885 with Clara, but Marty argues against it. Doc goes to Clara’s house to announce that he’s leaving, although when he explains that he must return to the future, she slaps him and accuses him of lying. Doc goes to the saloon and orders a shot of whiskey, but the bartender reminds Doc that he cannot tolerate alcohol. So, Doc ends up simply holding the shot in his hand. The next morning, Doc is still holding his shot, rambling to saloon patrons about the future. Marty finds Doc at the saloon and tells him they must head to the train tracks, but Doc takes his shot of whiskey and falls to the floor. Meanwhile, Clara buys a one-way ticket and boards the train to San Francisco, California. The bartender helps to revive Doc with a concoction of liquids he calls “wake-up juice”; however, just before 8am, Tannen arrives, calling Marty outside for the gunfight. Marty forfeits, and, when Tannen calls him “gutless,” Marty heeds Doc’s advice and ignores the insult. Doc and Marty escape through the back door of the saloon, but Tannen’s crew manages to kidnap Doc. Using Doc as a hostage, Tannen lures Marty outside, and as the clock strikes 8am, draws his gun. Marty suggests they settle the matter with a fistfight, but Tannen shoots him down. On the train to San Francisco, Clara overhears a man who spent the night at the saloon with Doc talking about Doc’s heartbreak over Clara, and she pulls a cord to stop the train. In town, Tannen approaches Marty’s body to confirm he is dead, but Marty kicks away Tannen’s gun and reveals an iron stove door that he used as a bulletproof vest. Marty hits Tannen with the stove door and knocks him into a wheelbarrow full of manure. Soon after, Tannen is arrested for a robbery he recently committed. Doc and Marty rush to catch the train on horseback, and Clara follows from a distance. Catching up to the train, Doc and Marty jump from their horses and make their way to the front of the train, holding the engineer at gunpoint and ordering him to stop the train. Doc and Marty then remove the excess cars, and Marty gets inside the time machine while Doc restarts the train. As the train gains speed and pushes the time machine along the tracks, Clara appears, jumping onto the train from her horse. Just before Doc leaps from the train to the time machine, he notices Clara holding onto the outside of the train and heads back to save her. Marty pushes his hoverboard, a flying skateboard he brought back from the future, out of the time machine and toward Doc. Catching the hoverboard, Doc floats over to Clara, grabs her from the train, and zooms away as the time machine reaches eighty-eight miles per hour and disappears with Marty inside. Arriving in 1985, Marty narrowly avoids death, getting out of the time machine just before a train runs over it. After seeing his family happy and healthy at home, Marty finds his girlfriend, Jennifer, sleeping on a porch swing outside her house. They kiss and Jennifer recalls a vivid nightmare she had about their future in which Marty was fired from his job. Later that day, a hoodlum named Needles drives up next to Marty and Jennifer at a stop sign and challenges Marty to a road race. Although Needles calls Marty a coward, Marty ignores the challenge and watches as Needles nearly collides with a Rolls Royce. Jennifer unfolds a piece of paper she found in her jacket with the message, “You’re fired,” but the message erases, and she realizes her nightmare about the future may have been real. To explain what happened, Marty shows Jennifer the remnants of the time machine by the train tracks. Suddenly, a steam-powered train appears, with Doc and Clara inside. Doc introduces their children, Jules and Verne, and presents Marty with a photograph taken of him and Marty in 1885. When Jennifer asks about the future, Doc promises that it has yet to be written. As Doc and his family depart on the time-traveling train, Marty asks if they are headed into the future, but Doc responds that they are not, saying he has already been there.