Plot summary

Bubba is back to protect his relatives! Bubba's cousin Chris Rhymer and her young son Jeremy come to town to hide after she testified against her crooked boss Harold Vance and sent him to prison. They move in with Aunt Hilda, who quickly tries to displace Jeremy's mother in his life. A crooked farm boss tells his employee, Shrievie, to quit slacking off. Shrievie replies that she thought it was okay because the boss has a scarecrow. The boss looks, but the scarecrow is now gone. He says that he never had one before. The boss is trying to force Aunt Hilda off of her land. The scarecrow kills him and then, when his assistant tries to force Hilda off of her land too, he is also killed by the scarecrow. Shrievie is suspected of the murders and goes on the run. Discontented, Jeremy has already become friends with a scarecrow and is making little toy figures of him. Chris also sees a scarecrow in the corn field and starts talking about her secrets with him, planting a flower in its lapel which is somehow returned to her while she sleeps one night. Shrievie is killed by the scarecrow, too, and burned to death in an old barn. Another one of the boss's men sees the scarecrow on the road one day and he is scared out of his truck and then run over by another truck and killed. Chris knows something is going on, and the vegetable seller is reluctant to talk about what happened to her cousin Bubba 40 years ago, but he says that Hilda knows. Hilda is vague about it, although she did take Chris and Jeremy to Bubba's grave earlier. Chris's new friend, Sheriff Orrin Tutt, does some research and finds out what happened to Bubba 40 years ago. Jeremy tells his mother that the scarecrow's name is Bubba and she knows something is up. But before she can press the matter further, Vance's lawyer gets him out on parole and he comes to town and recruits its crooked deputy to lure Chris into a trap in a barn, claiming that Sheriff Tutt is there. The deputy had pointed out that all this trouble had started once Chris had came to town, but the sheriff said to leave her alone. Chris is bound and gagged, but the scarecrow appears and hangs the deputy by his neck in the barn until he is dead. Chris tells Jeremy they have to go on the run again and he is very upset, but Hilda says there may be a way they can prevent it. Vance is waiting when Chris gets back to her house and he answers about how going on the run has caused his marriage to fail, his friends to turn against him and made her haggard and that Jeremy resents her for it, but says now Jeremy will have a better home to live in when she is dead. He forces her at gunpoint out into the corn field and makes her dig her own grave, but she throws some dirt at him when the corn rustles and he chases after her, only to be attacked by the scarecrow, thrown into the grave and impaled through his heart with the shovel. Sheriff Tutt consoles Chris later and reveals that Bubba was killed while he was hiding in a scarecrow costume. Chris goes to Hilda's house and finds that Jeremy does not want to leave and that Hilda is actually trying to persuade Jeremy to convince the scarecrow to kill Chris so that she can keep Jeremy there to be her dead nephew's playmate and guide. Chris tells Jeremy that the scarecrow is a child in his mind, that he should do the right thing and let him go, and that she loves him. Jeremy leaves with his mother and Hilda swears revenge. She goes to the scarecrow and hugs it, saying that she will find him another playmate and that they will have their revenge. The scarecrow crushes her to death and hangs her corpse up on its pole. The next day, Sheriff Tutt and the Mayor cover the whole matter up to protect themselves, and Chris is now in the clear. Chris and Jeremy drive out of town back to their old house. In the corn field, the scarecrow turns its head and watches them as they leave. It opens its hand and a flower drops to the ground. A crow caws.