Billy the Kid #23

When Billy the Kid arrives at a prospector's camp to find his old friend Jeb mortally wounded, he learns that their partner Phil Kessler has turned murderous over gold fever and fled with the mine's map. Billy pursues Kessler across mountains and into the merciless desert, but the killer sets a deadly trap by shooting an Arapaho brave, leaving Billy stripped of ammunition and supplies when the tribe's revenge falls on his camp instead. Now, weakened by thirst and heat, Billy must track down his quarry across an unforgiving landscape where the desert itself becomes as much an enemy as the man he's hunting.

When a stampeding herd threatens a young boy's life, Billy the Kid rides to the rescue—earning the gratitude of his old friend Clem Ruppert and a place on the ranch plagued by rustlers. But the gang plots to eliminate the unpredictable outlaw by hiring Ned Black, a deceptive peddler with a hidden gun and a dark secret from the boy's past. As Billy trains the gun-shy Bobby to survive in the wild West, Black's arrival sets in motion a confrontation that will test everything the Kid has taught him.

Billy the Kid arrives at a lonely ranch to find the gunhands of a manipulative villain called the Deacon laying siege, and he drives them off to help the desperate rancher Old Lem. When the Deacon later confronts Billy in town with honeyed words about the weight of a gunfighter's conscience, the silver-tongued schemer manages to talk the young outlaw into surrendering his guns—but Billy's surrender may be far more cunning than it appears. With the Deacon and his men riding to finish Old Lem, Billy must use his wits to stop them before it's too late.

The mild-mannered Zebe Skinflint, proprietor of the local pawn shop, moonlights as the fearless Loan Arranger—a quick-change vigilante who takes on outlaws when duty calls. When bank robbers strike and things spiral into chaos, our hero must face off against the notorious Black Bart Gang to protect the town. It's a clever tale of double identities and frontier justice with a humorous twist that reminds us heroes work in mysterious ways.