Outlaws of the West #46

Cal James has a fearsome reputation as a notorious gunman and outlaw—but the legend is pure invention, created by the government as cover for an undercover Army captain with a dangerous assignment. Sent to the Arizona Badlands to stop the criminal Frank Prescot before he can spark an Indian war, Captain James must navigate the frontier as the fictional gunslinger he's pretended to be. When the moment comes to confront Prescot and his illegal gun-running scheme, the myth becomes very real.

Cattle rustler Slade Peters makes a deadly vow against Cole Davis after being captured and sentenced to ten years hard labor, but when Peters is released on parole seven years later, Davis must confront whether an old enemy's thirst for revenge can ever truly be quenched. With the sheriff on high alert and tension mounting in Springboro, a final reckoning waits in the darkness.

In a drought-stricken frontier town, Lucas Wipp strikes water—and oil—in Graveyard Gorge, but his refusal to share the precious resource at anything less than company rates pushes desperate ranchers toward violence. When hired killers close in on Wipp, the mysterious gunfighter known as Gunmaster intercedes, though a humble gunsmith named Clay Boone wrestles with the moral cost of his secret identity and the affections of Nancy, who admires Gunmaster's swift justice far more than Boone's philosophy of nonviolence. As tensions mount and Ned Dolan rallies angry cattlemen to seize the water by force, Boone must decide whether his pacifist convictions can survive the clash between desperation and greed.

When Kent confronts the deadly hired gun Durkin—brought in by the ruthless Cyrus Raab to eliminate him—an unexpected alliance forms over drinks in a dusty saloon. Durkin, tired of hired killing and drawn to the promise of honest ranching, finds common cause with Kent against Raab's iron grip on the valley and its desperate homesteaders. Together, these two gunmen set out to reclaim what Raab has stolen, turning his own imported killer against his reign of terror.

Two rival gang leaders, Slim Kinley and Raff Jenners, command the roughest outfits in the West—but when the frontier becomes too cramped for them both, their constant interference with each other's plans finally forces a reckoning. The two gangs face off in a canyon for an all-out battle that will determine which ruthless outfit survives.