Tex Ritter Western #45

Tex Ritter finds himself dazed and confused after a brutal encounter with the escaped Nurry gang, only to discover that the outlaws have turned the tables on him—he's convinced he's lost his memory, and they've seized the opportunity to pose as lawmen while forcing him to join their criminal scheme. When Tex realizes the truth behind Nurry's stolen badge, he must outthink the gang before their planned express office robbery puts innocent lives in danger.

A traveling magician rolls into town just as the brutal bully Judd Faraday is throwing his weight around at the local saloon, and when the stranger refuses to back down from Faraday's aggressive challenges, a quick bit of sleight of hand sends the tyrant packing for good. In "Like Magic," a clever conjurer proves that sometimes the best way to handle a bully isn't with real bullets—just nerve and a well-timed trick.

When Tex Ritter's buddy faces a ruthless rustler named Boze Macklin and his gang of hired guns—who've branded nearly everything in the Arroyo Basin and blocked all cattle shipments to market—the Prairie Ranger finds himself operating outside his legal authority and up against impossible odds. With the nearest sheriff sixty miles away and Macklin's crew holding the valley tight, Tex hatches an unconventional plan that turns the outlaw's own ambitions against him. It's a sharp lesson in strategy wrapped in six-gun action, where sometimes the cleverest way out of a corner beats any amount of gunplay.

Tex Ritter tracks a mysterious gang of outlaws led by Rio Joe across the Texas desert—their baffling speed leaves lawmen stumped until Tex discovers they're riding stolen Army camels, swift enough to cover impossible distances. Now Tex must pursue them into the harsh badlands, using every trick he knows to catch up and stop Rio Joe's raids before they disappear across the Rio Grande.

Tex Ritter faces an impossible choice when gunslick Deuce Miller comes to town with a three o'clock deadline for a showdown. The Prairie Ranger knows Miller's story—a young man driven to violence after being swindled out of his father's ranch by crooked banker Jack Drew—and finds himself unable to see the kid as just another outlaw to gun down. As the clock counts toward that fateful moment, Tex must figure out how to stop a man he sympathizes with without resorting to the bullet that could destroy him.