Tumbleweed (1953)

Audie Murphy acts as a guide for a family of settlers heading to California. Along the way, they encounter a hostile group of Yaquis. Murphy actually saved the chief's son at the very start of the movie, so he tries to negotiate. He ends up tied to the ground, waiting to have his eyelids cut off at sunrise, but the son's mother saves him. By the time he gets to town, beaten, minus his gear and horse, the wagon train had already been there. What's left of them.

The wife of the man leading the train, her child, and her sister survived, as did the man's brother. The conclusion everyone in town comes to is that Murphy sold the others out. Again, despite him looking beat to hell and minus all his stuff. Curiously, no one seems to question how the brother survived when every other man was killed.

Then the sheriff locks Murphy up to keep him from being lynched, only to have his deputy sell Murphy out later, only for Murphy to be saved by the chief's son, who kills the deputy and dies in the process. Everyone is so hellbent on catching Audie Murphy for killing the deputy, they somehow don't notice the Yaqui dead on the ground not far away.

All that is fairly bog-standard. What made Tumbleweed entertaining didn't kick in until after this point, as Murphy's on the run and ends up at a nearby ranch, trying to steal a horse and failing miserably. The owner, having been falsely accused of murder at a point in his past, lets Murphy have a horse. It's at this point the chase begins in earnest, as the sheriff's posse does it's best to catch up, and the brother shows his true colors. 

Fortunately, while Murphy isn't impressed with the man's "best horse", a scraggly little white cayuse said to be raised on burro's milk after its mother died, but the horse is pretty slick. The horse climbs up a rocky path none of the posse can follow (Lee van Cleef tries and falls off the back of his horse). When they reached what appears to be a dried-up watering hole, the horse finds water below the sand. Right after Murphy calls it a 'dumb horse', no less. My dad and I had a pretty good time praising the horse and giving Murphy grief for being a moron.