Wild Westerns #22

Six-Gun Fury

Cattle rustler Faro Kirk and his gang attack a cattle man named Bogart who has purchased cattle without his knowledge. Faro demands to know who sold him the cattle and for how much. Bogart refuses to tell, but when one of his cow-hands offers, Faro shoot Bogart dead. The ranch hands tell him that the cattle were purchased from Pete Townshend of the Eagle Rock Spread. However, Faro does not spare their lives like he said he would and slaughters them all.

Faro then storms in on the Townsend family and demands Pete to turn over the 50 thousand dollars he made from the cattle sale. When Pete refuses, Faro has his men light the entire ranch on fire and force the Townsend family to stay in their burning house until they either burn alive or surrender the money. With no other choice, Pete turns over the money in order to save the life of his wife and son. However, when Pete hands over the money, he is shot dead. Faro and his men are then driven off by Kid Colt, an old friend of Pete's, who arrives with his guns blazing. He learns what happened and vows to his dying friend that he will take the money to the bank and deposit it for his wife and son.

When Kid Colt rides into town, he forces his way into the bank and demands that they make a deposit for Pete's widow and draw him up a receipt. As fate would have it, Faro Kirk and his men ride into town intending to rob the bank. When they go in to do the deed, Kid Colt gets the drop on them and guns the entire gang down. In the aftermath he then rides back to the Townsend homestead and turns over the bank deposit.

Recurring Characters

• Kid Colt

• Steel

Legion of the Dead

Four dead outlaws appear to rise from their graves and ride into the local town where they execute Clem Morrison the local jailer. The seemingly undead outlaws then release the prisoners in the jail, revealing themselves to be Jose Morales, Matt Sherill, Daniel Kane, and Raymond Holliday, outlaws that were killed years earlier. This gang of outlaws and their undead leaders then go from town to town, robbing everything of value and burning the towns flat.

The Gunhawk rides into one of the towns and come across some survivors and learns what had transpired in town. When talking to the local doctor he learns that the leader of the outlaw gang are apparently walking dead men. Red decides to investigate this further and follows the outlaw gang's back trail. It leads him back to a nearby cemetery where he sees the supposed zombies crawl back into their graves. Following after them, he finds a secret tunnel system instead. Coming across the outlaws he guns them down, and finds that they die in an all to human fashion. Later the Gunhawk returns with the US army, who check the bodies and find that they were merely outlaws who were wearing life-like masks to resemble the outlaws they were posing as.

Recurring Characters

• Gunhawk

• Blaze

Vengeance Trail!

When a wagon train rides through a rugged plain they are attacked by what appears to be a renegade band of Native Americans. They are saved thanks by the timely arrival of troops led by Captain Bill Gregory and his friend Aloysius Kare. Learning who attacked the wagon train, Kare decides to investigate on his own and leaves the group to track down the supposed renegades.

Once safely aware, Kare changes into the Apache Kid and tracks down the renegades -- who actually turn out to be regular outlaws posing as Native Americans, led by an outlaw named Bobo. When Bobo's gang discover that the Apache Kid is spying on them, they do not know who he is and the Kid pretends to be unable to speak. Bobo then gets the idea that they could use the native warrior for their own ends and they try to train him to carry out tasks for them.

However, the Apache Kid plays dumb and eventually Bobo becomes fed up and decides to shoot the Kid in the head. He stops short of pulling the trigger when one of his men advise him that another wagon train is passing through the area. Bobo leaves a guard on the Apache Kid and prepares for another raid. Left alone with the lone guard, the Apache Kid then breaks his cover and slays the man watching him. The Kid then rushes after the outlaws, exposing their position for the soldiers following the wagon train. Bobo's entire gang is wiped out, and the Apache Kid slays their leader before reporting the entire incident to Captain Gregory.

Recurring Characters

• Apache Kid

• Captain Bill Gregory

• Nightwind