Rocky Lane's Black Jack #30

When a wagon train bound for Los Cuecias comes under attack from warpath tribes, Rocky Lane and his stallion Black Jack ride into the chaos to help defend the settlers. Captured and forced to run a deadly gauntlet with his hands tied, Rocky finds himself facing what seems like certain doom—until his loyal horse recognizes an old rival and turns the tables in a spectacular way. It's a tight, thrilling test of horse and rider against impossible odds in this 1959 frontier tale.

A tribute to the legendary lawmen who shaped the Old West, "The Badge" celebrates the skill, nerve, and quick thinking of frontier sheriffs like Wild Bill Hickok, Pat Garrett, Bucky O'Neill, and Wyatt Earp—men who faced down outlaws with guns, fists, and the grit to survive impossible odds. Each tale captures a different facet of what it took to wear a sheriff's star in a lawless land.

When Rocky Lane leaves his stallion Black Jack in an uninhabited valley for a much-needed rest, he doesn't realize a troubled family has recently settled there—and the boy Mark quickly forms a bond with the horse that becomes far more significant than a simple friendship. As Black Jack and the boy share adventures together, a dangerous encounter with a rattlesnake sets off a chain of events that forces Mark's father Verde to confront the emotional blindness that's held him captive since a tragic accident years before. It's a touching frontier tale about how compassion and connection can heal the deepest wounds.

Rocky Lane pursues the wanted outlaw Blackie Kyle through the Apache Hills, but their tense standoff in a remote gully becomes far more dangerous when Kyle's warnings about hostile tribes go unheeded. When Black Jack leaves camp in the night, the great stallion encounters a maddened wild horse attacking an Apache chief—and his intervention sets off a chain of events that may be the only thing standing between Lane and certain death.

Two men stake their claim on the same young woman, and when words fail, one challenges the other to a gunfight at sundown—but a bronc buster named Hondo, facing off against a faster draw, devises an unconventional strategy to even the odds. In this 1959 western tale, Hondo discovers that the real showdown might not be won with guns at all.

When roving marshal Rocky Lane pursues the outlaw Buck Tremaine to a hidden gang hideout, he's captured and bound—but his loyal stallion Black Jack has followed, and the powerful stud won't abandon his master to the outlaws' mercy. As the Hole-in-the-Wall gang closes in, Black Jack becomes Lane's only hope for freedom in this 1959 western tale from Rocky Lane's Black Jack.