The Reckoning is the first in the series of Jess Williams western novels written by Robert J. Thomas. Jess Williams is an ordinary young boy with a loving family growing up in Black Creek, Kansas. That all changes when he comes home and finds his family brutally murdered.Forced to become a man overnight, he vows to avenge his family's savage deaths. He begins to practice with his Pa's Colt .45 and then a stroke of destiny arrives when he discovers a new pistol and holster that mysteriously appears. Jess practices with it relentlessly until he becomes so quick that he is inbeatable on the draw.He leaves home transformed from a boy to a highly skilled shootist with no reason to live except to hunt down and kill each of the three men responsible for the murders. as he begins his journey, he does so with a pistol and holster that no one has ever seen before—and won't again for almost one-hundred years.

In Brother's Keeper, Jess Williams returns home to Black Creek Kansas, after hunting down and killing the three men who brutally murdered his family. When he arrives, he finds himself in the midst of a bloody war with Dick Carter and his hired killers. Carter wants revenge for the death of his only son Red, and Jess is the one who did the killing. Jess' first job is to rid Carter and his hired killers and then finish his search for the brother he never knew he had.

Sins of the Father is the third western novel in the series based on the character Jess Williams. In book one, Jess hunts down the men who brutally murdered his family. In book two, he hunts down the brother he never knew he had.Now, in book three, Sins of the Father, Jess has been on the trail of his father, Eddie Sloan for two years; but his father has always been one step ahead of him. When Jess finally gets him in his sights, he is detoured once again by a call for help.Marshal Frank Reedy is locked up in jail in Timber, Texas and Sheriff Mark Steele is near death from an ambush. Jess heads to Timber and into a bloody range war between two cattle barons.Rance Madden and his hired killers have no idea of the trouble that is heading their way. Jess arrives and Madden's men start dying one by one and he begins to feel the grip of death at his throat—and Jess is slowly tightening the noose.

THE BURNING is the fourth in the western series, A Jess Williams Novel. In book three, Jess rescues a nice family of four and escorts them to where they plan on building a new homestead on land they own. In book four, Jess returns to help the family finish building their home and when he gets there, he finds out that all four of them have been murdered and their home burned down to the ground by the three Bolin brothers, Lance, Felix and Burt. Before killing the two children, Jessica and Harold, Burt Bolin does some unthinkable things to them. Jess sets off on their trail, hell-bent to make them pay for what they did. Along the way, Jess runs into United States Marshal Frank Reedy who asks Jess to detour from hunting the Bolin brothers and help the Marshal deal with a rich rancher, Evan Dwight, who is running out the other small ranchers in the area; and if they don't sell cheap, they end up dead. Jess again finds himself in a war with dozens of hired guns, but in the end, Jess and Marshal Reedy are still standing, and Evan Dwight ends up in the ground. When that is over, Jess continues on his hunt for the Bolins, and he never stops until he kills every last one of them. To make his job even more difficult, it seems a rich banker from New York City has placed a ten thousand blood bounty on his head because Jess killed his brother, and every hired gun in the west is looking to collect the blood bounty. An exciting, action-packed novel you won't be able to put down.

The Dodge City Massacre is the fifth in the series of Jess Williams western novels. In book five, John Bodine saves Jess Williams life and Jess owes Bodine a big favor. John Bodine wastes no time in collecting on the favor. He asks Jess to team up with him and go after a bunch of gunslingers in Dodge City, Kansas. Once there, Jess ends up in a war with a wealthy rancher and his hired guns. The action continues and takes Jess and John Bodine to Black Creek, Kansas and to Kansas City. The action is non stop and fast paced with Jess Williams' usual brand of raw justice, ridding the west of as many bad men as he can kill.

HELL HATH NO FURY is the sixth in the series of western novels based on the character Jess Williams. In book six, Jess Williams finds out that the only woman he had ever gotten close to has been raped, beaten and murdered by two men. In a rage of fury, he sets out to hunt down the two men responsible. As he does, fate comes into play when Jess meets up with a woman by the name of Annie McCracken, who happened to have been raped by the same two men that Jess is tracking down. Jess is in for one wild ride when he agrees to let Annie McCracken ride with him and find the two men that the both of them are hunting. Jess has never had a woman for a partner and Annie proves to be more than a handful. The wild and sometimes funny banter that takes place between Jess and Annie will keep you turning the pages, but make no mistake, this is yet another action-packed western with lots of lead flying and lots of men dying at the skillful hands of Jess Williams.

Jess is on the hunt for two men wanted for murder when he runs into a crooked sheriff in a little Texas town. Jess finds himself locked up in jail and all of his weapons confiscated by Sheriff Hatfield, including his very unique pistol and holster. To make matters even worse, Sheriff Hatfield plans on having Jess swinging from a hangman's noose soon. Moments before Jess is supposed to hang, he is rescued by United States Marshal Frank Reedy who has other plans for Jess and his unique set of killing skills. After Jess finishes with his revenge on Sheriff Hatfield and his two deputies, Marshal Reedy informs Jess that their good friend, John Bodine, is locked up in a little Mexican jail and being guarded by General Zoreles and his army of men. Jess finds out that he has to go into Mexico all by himself to break John Bodine out of the jail before General Zoreles has him executed by a Mexican firing squad. The battle that ensues at the Rio Grande River turns into a hellish bloodbath, with Jess taking on General Zoreles and his army as he brings another unique gun to the battle.

In Death Dance, Jess is on the hunt for two men who killed an innocent woman and her son. His hunt takes him to Wichita where he finds United States Marshal Frank Reedy healing from the wounds he received in an ambush that left his deputy, Chance Hannon, dead. Jess sets out to hunt the men responsible for the ambush on Frank Reedy, but things get even more complicated when a group of pistol competitors from the state of New York come west to get revenge against Jess for the killing of their friend and pistol champion, Wesley Hommes, who Jess killed in a gunfight. If that wasn't bad enough, Thomas Stidham offers up ten thousand dollars to start a pot of prize money for the man who can kill Jess in a fair gunfight. Jess ends up in Abilene, Kansas, where hundreds of easterners come to watch what becomes the "Death Dance with Jess Williams," where Jess has to accept challenge after challenge from the group of pistol competitors from New York who want to be the one who beats him on the draw and receive over forty thousand dollars in prize money.

In the ninth novel titled Blood Trail, Jess finds himself on the hunt for yet another wanted outlaw. He travels to a little town called Hope, Kansas, and when he does, he finds Brendon Petersen and his band out outlaws. Petersen wants United States Marshal Frank Reedy dead for putting him in prison. Jess ends up tracking Petersen and his band of outlaws along a trail that leads from Hope and follows a path north toward Wichita, leaving a trail of blood and dead bodies along the way. Jess kills many of Petersen's men, but when Petersen finds out that Jess was the man who killed his brother Wick, Petersen turns his attention to Jess with a vengence.

Jess discovers that Sheriff Sam Davies has been murdered in Wichita. While on the hunt for the four men who murdered Davies, he ends up helping the new and unexperienced Sheriff Pickens deal with the lawlessness that has come to Wichita in the form of a brewing fight between two ranchers. If that wasn't bad enough, one of the ranchers, Ron Dawkins, hires Clay Finch from Montana to come and kill Jess, the mayor of the town as well as the inexperienced Sheriff Pickens. When things finally boil over, Jess finds an unexpected ally in the form of Jeremiah White, the lead man for one of the ranchers involved in the dispute that threatens to turn Wichita into a deathbed.

Long Guns is the eleventh in the series of Jess Williams western novels. In book eleven, Jess continues to pursue his job of bounty hunter, hunting down the worst of men for money. As if his job wasn't dangerous enough, he finds out that Thomas Stidham from New York City has hired four men to track him down and kill him using buffalo rifles to ambush him. Jess ends up in Kansas City, Kansas, where he meets Alex Brand, just one more in a long line of gunslingers who want to square off with Jess for his reputation. To make matters worse, a man who calls himself Snake Oil shows up in Kansas City and his reasons for being there seems to be a secret. Jess doesn't know Snake Oil or his real intentions, but when he does find out, things turn deadly.

Wanted is the twelfth in the series of Jess Williams western books. In Wanted, Jess is hunting down more bad men for the bounty on their heads. He runs into a young boy hell bent on killing the man who killed his father. After Jess helps the young boy, he continues his work as a bounty hunter, but suddenly he finds out that three United States Marshals have a warrant out on Jess and are looking for him. Jess is now a wanted man because a Judge by the name of Winston Bottoms wants to question Jess about the deaths of Henry and Thomas Stidham in New York City. Jess finally agrees to meet Judge Winston Bottoms, but only on Jess' terms. The meeting is about to go badly when suddenly, Judge Bottoms finds out that his sister, Callie, has been kidnapped by the Holden brothers, and they want to exchange her for their brother Bob Holden, who is in the Dodge City jail waiting to swing from a rope. Judge Bottoms agrees to cancel the warrant on Jess as long as Jess goes and rescues the Judge's sister, Callie, who is being held in a canyon by eleven men. Jess has to find a way to get her out alive or the Judge will swear a new warrant out on Jess' arrest, dead or alive.

Tin Man is the thirteenth in the series of Jess Williams westerns. In Tin Man, Jess rides into the colorful little town of Paradise, Kansas, looking for a wanted man. When he arrives, he finds trouble in the form of Sarah Purtell's hired guns. He helps a small boy, Toby Lambert, by helping his pa, Heath Lambert, who was receiving a beating from three of Sarah Purtell's men. The mayor of the town tries to hire Jess as the sheriff in town after that, but Jess wants no part of being a lawman, even though he still carries a United States Marshal's badge in his shirt pocket. Jess rides back out of the town of Paradise and returns later to find more trouble brewing in Paradise. Eventually, little Toby Lambert convinces Jess to take the job of sheriff and Jess reluctantly agrees. Things begin to heat up between Jess and Sarah Purtell's hired guns, and then, Jess is suspiciously fired by the mayor and town council because Sarah Purtell's brother, Randall Purtell, has his own plans for the town. Jess finally leaves Paradise on the hunt for another wanted man, but when he returns, he finds Toby Lambert and his pa dead, their house burned to the ground. Then he finds Sarah Purtell out at her ranch raped and murdered by her own hired guns and when Jess returns back to Paradise with her dead body, he returns as a United States Marshal ready to bring order to the town of Paradise. Jess will bring justice to the men responsible for the deaths of Sarah Purtell and Little Toby Lambert and his pa, and when he does, he'll do it with his own brand of justice.

In Retribution, Jess leaves the colorful town of Paradise, Kansas; but before he does, he stops at the fresh graves of Little Toby Lambert and his father, Heath, who tried to clean up the town by pinning a sheriff's badge on. Jess makes a solemn promise at Toby Lambert's grave site that he will hunt down the four men responsible for their deaths, as well as for Sarah Purtell, who was savagely beaten, raped and murdered by her own men with the help of her own brother. Jess sets out on a mission of revenge to hunt down and kill the four men responsible and his mission takes him to northern Texas, where he searches for them. His search is a long and hard one, having to crisscross northern Texas searching town after town, looking for the four men, but he won't give up, he never does. The four men he is hunting discover that he is on their trail, and they split up, making the job of hunting them even harder, but they learn that when Jess Williams is hunting a man, he never quits...ever!

Jess finally takes time for a well-deserved rest after finally hunting down the other four men who killed little Toby Lambert and his father and raped and killed Sarah Purtell. He arrives in Stratton, Texas, to stay at the Stratton Hotel and finds trouble on the first day, having two run-ins with the town sheriff and a back-shooter by the name of Rory Hammond. Things get worse when Jess is approached by a young girl by the name of Samantha Shultz who is dressed as a young boy and wants to hire Jess as her personal hired gun. Jess refuses at first, but things change after hefinds out exactly why she wants to hire him. Jess and Samantha set out on a long journey of revenge and justice. Jess' job is hard enough, but having a young naive girl dressed as a boy makes his job even more difficult. He has to protect her while hunting down stone-cold killers and she doesn't make the job any easier. Before his job is finished, more bad men will hit the dirt, victims of the raw justice Jess dispenses in his own way.

In Hunted, Jess Williams is again hunting down killers who have a bounty on their heads. Then, some strange things start happening. Someone starts killing off some of the men Jess is after and leaving a shiny fifty caliber rifle cartridge as his calling card. Jess tries to backtrack his own trail and find out who the mysterious man is who is killing his targets and why, but he can't find who is doing it. Finally, Jess' old friend and United State Marshal Frank Reedy wires Jess asking for a face-to-face meeting. Reedy tells Jess about Martin Creed, also nicknamed The Ghost. The Ghost is an evil and cagy murderer who enjoys watching his victims die slowly. But that's not really why Frank Reedy wanted to talk to Jess. He informs Jess that Martin Creed has selected his next prey to hunt down and kill, and that prey is Jess Williams himself, and so far, the Ghost has never failed to kill anyone he was hunting. A cat and mouse game ensues between The Ghost and Jess, and Jess wonders if he has finally met his match and what is really on the other side of that door they call death.

Jess is shot, robbed of five thousand dollars, and left for dead. If that wasn't bad enough, his unique pistol and holster is missing, taken by the four men who ambushed him. Mattie Smith, a woman with troubles of her own, finds Jess and nurses him back to health. Jess learns that Mattie is fighting to keep her ranch and the owner of the Double S ranch, Tom Stewart, is trying to drive Mattie out. Mattie pleads with Jess to stay and help her fight off Stewart and his hired guns, but Jess has to find the men who ambushed him and get his pistol and holster back. Jess goes on the hunt for the four men who left him for dead, but before he can get the last one, he gets a message that Mattie's ranch has been attacked by night riders and all but three of her men have been killed. Jess returns to Henderson, Texas, to find Mattie and her three men holed up in the hotel and Tom Stewart on the verge of taking Mattie's ranch. Stewart starts a war with Jess that he can't finish, but Stewart doesn't know that yet. Before the lead stops flying, a lot of men will die, and Jess is determined that he will be the last man standing when it's over with.

'In Cold Blood' is the eighteenth in the continuing series of Jess Williams westerns by Robert J. Thomas. Jess is on the hunt for the last of the four men who ambushed him and left him for dead. Once that was finished, he would hunt down the four outlaws who led the bloody night raid on Mattie Smith's ranch. His hunt is quickly interrupted when he receives a wire from his good friend Mayor Jim Smythe of Black Creek, Kansas, requesting that Jess return to his home town immediately to help solve some very strange and brutal murders. Jess returns to his hometown to discover that the murders are continuing in Black Creek. Jess tries to catch the elusive killer, following the few clues left by the killer, but his search takes him to several other small towns surrounding Black Creek where the same brutal murders are taking place. To make matters worse, Jess has devised a plan to trick the four men who led the night raid on Mattie Smith's ranch to travel to Black Creek. The four men are all cold-blooded killers and Jess has to face them down and survive so that he can continue his hunt for the elusive killer near his hometown.

Jess is on his way to Stratton, Texas, where he plans on spending a few days resting up and visiting with his old friend John Bodine, who is the new Sheriff in Stratton. He stops in a little no-name town where two toughs force him into a gunfight. The exchange of hot lead leaves the two men dead, but Jess notices that both men are wearing black sashes tied around their right arms. He runs into two more hard cases on his way to Stratton, and both of them are also wearing the same black sashes tied around their right arms. When Jess rides into town, his rest is quickly interrupted by some more men who are also wearing the black sashes tied around their right arms. Jess helps Bodine run them out of Stratton, but the whole matter turns deadly once Captain Lance Reagan rides into town with twenty-five heavily-armed killers to break one of their men out of the jail. Once Jess and Bodine discover what Captain Reagan's real plan is, the battle ensues and lead starts flying and a lot of innocent people start dying. Reagan turns out to be a crazed killer with a diabolical plan that Jess has to stop, but Reagan isn't going to give up easily, and neither is Jess.

Jess in on the hunt for yet another wanted man when he comes across a wanted poster on a woman by the name of Jane Lacey. She is wanted for the killing of Jethro Mercer. The reward money is being offered by Walt Mercer, a rich and ruthless businessman, and Jethro's father. What Walt Mercer doesn't know, is that Jethro raped Jane Lacey and was about to murder her to keep it quiet when she kills him in self-defense. Blind fate brings Jess and Jane together, where Jess learns that there was a witness to her rape and the killing of Jethro Mercer. When Jess hears the story about what happened, he sets off on a hunt for the only witness, who fled and is in hiding, afraid of what Walt Mercer might do to him. It starts out as a simple enough job; find Rubin Fisher and make him ride back to Defiancé, Texas, and tell Walt Mercer what really happened. But the job quickly turns out to be anything but simple. Mercer puts up twenty-five thousand dollars for anyone who brings him Jane Lacey alive. Jess takes Jane on his hunt for Rubin Fisher and it takes a deadly turn with every gunslinger and bounty hunter in Texas hunting Jane for the twenty-five thousand dollars Walt Mercer put on her head. Strange partnerships are formed and a lot of men start dying along the way, and Jess is determined that Jane Lacey won't be one of the ones going down.

Jess finds himself on the way to Stratton, Texas, after helping Jane Lacey escape the death grip of Walt Mercer and all his money. The fact that he had to finally kill Walt Mercer to accomplish it, was not something he had wanted to do, but Walt Mercer had left him no other choice. He finds plenty of trouble along the way, but he eventually arrives in Stratton and his plan is simple: get the best suite in the Stratton Hotel and rest up for a few days. That plan suddenly changes when a wagon train arrives in Stratton with their wagon master killed in a bloody Indian attack. Jess reluctantly agrees to take on the job of wagon master for the caravan of wagons after Laura Woods convinces him that the only way they could make it to their destination is if he agrees to lead them. Their trip to Benson, Arizona, is long and arduous. They are attacked by Indians, outlaws and thieves along the way. To make matters worse, Rod Mercer has placed a blood bounty on Jess' head for the killing of his brother Walt Mercer. The three Galt brother's have decided to collect on the bounty and they are hot on his trail. He finds his task twice as hard, looking ahead for the wagon train, and constantly looking over his shoulder for the Galt brothers.

Jess is on the hunt again for wanted men with bounty on their heads. His work is interrupted by the men that Rod Mercer keeps hiring to kill him as revenge for killing his brother. Jess sends a wire to Rod Mercer, warning him to remove the blood bounty on his head, but Mercer won't relent. After Jess deals with Rod Mercer and the last man hired to kill him, he receives an urgent wire from his good friend Mayor Jim Smythe in Black Creek, Kansas. The wire doesn't explain the reason why, but that he is needed back in Black Creek as soon as he can get there. Once Jess arrives in Black Creek, Mayor Jim Smythe explains why he sent for him. Three Mormon families who lived just outside of Black Creek have been murdered and butchered alive, including ten young children. The leader of the group of outlaws responsible is Avery Sutton. Jess stands at the sixteen freshly dug graves and makes them a solemn promise to hunt down and kill the six men responsible for their horrific deaths. He leaves Black Creek on the hunt for Avery Sutton and his other five men and he won't rest until every last one of them pays the ultimate price for their heinous crimes. Before it's over, a lot of bullets fly and a lot of men die.

Jess is back on the hunt for more wanted men when he runs into an old friend, Alex Brand, who has decided to go into the bounty hunting business himself. He gets Jess to agree to teach him the business. A United States Senator's wife is brutally murdered by an outlaw gang led by a man called Hombre. Senator Thibadough calls on United States Marshal Frank Reedy to make sure that Hombre and his band of outlaws are dealt with in the most serious manner. The Senator, being a very rich and powerful man, puts up a fifty thousand dollar personal bounty for Hombre's dead body. When Reedy informs the Senator that Jess Williams is on the hunt for Hombre, the Senator offers Jess one hundred thousand dollars if he will personally bring him the dead body of Hombre. Hombre continues his killing spree, even wiping out an entire town and burning it to the ground. Jess is hot on the trail of Hombre and his men, but he is hampered with the job of training Alex Brand at the same time. To make his job even harder, two other bounty hunters are following him, hoping that Jess will lead them straight to Hombre.

Jess finds himself in Hays, Kansas, looking for the man who murdered his friend, Hardtack Hammer, up in Durango, Colorado. He puts Big Jim Baker out of commission for good, shooting him in the elbow a second before he was going to cut the neck of another fighter, ending his career in boxing. He continues to hunt wanted men, but his hunt is cut short when he finally gets a wire from United States Marshal Frank Reedy. Reedy wants Jess to go to Wichita and join up with John Bodine to help settle a range war between two of the largest cattle barons in the area. The richest ranch owner is hell-bent on buying out the second largest cattle ranch and when Jess gets involved, lead starts flying and men start dying. Tom Rund makes it his mission to remove his one obstacle that's still in his way...Jess Williams.

Jess is busy doing what he does best, hunting down wanted men for the bounty on their heads when he receives an urgent message from an old friend, Sheriff Mark Steele in Timber, Texas. Jess travels to Timber to find Sheriff Steele badly wounded and recuperating, and Pattie Nate with a broken arm and almost trampled to death from a bunch of outlaws led by a man named McCoy. McCoy and his bunch of outlaws kill Jess' old friend River Bend Bill and a few other townsfolk before the raid is over. They also trample Judge McBride's wife to death on their way out of Timber. Sheriff Steele wants Jess to hunt down McCoy and his men and bring them to justice in the most severe way. Jess sets out on a long ride to hunt down every one of them. He is faced with several setbacks, but his dogged determination to get the men responsible drives him on, never giving up and never backing down.

Jess is back on the job of hunting down wanted men when he realizes that he is being followed by someone or something evil. Brutal murders begin to happen wherever he goes and the murders remind him of the way that Martin Creed, also known as The Ghost, murdered young women torturing them slowly. When he finds a custom-loaded fifty-caliber cartridge, loaded exactly like the ones Martin Creed used, he gets nervous and suspicious, especially when he sees the letter M etched on the cartridge. Even with the knowledge that he had already killed Martin Creed and buried him in an unmarked grave, he finds himself back in Roosevelt, Texas, to dig up the unmarked grave of Martin Creed. He gets the shock of a lifetime when the pine box is unearthed and opened and he sees that the body of Martin Creed is missing and all that remains is a single fifty-caliber cartridge with the letter M etched on it. The cat and mouse game between Jess and whoever or whatever is following him continues with more women being murdered. He starts to believe that Martin Creed really crawled out from the grave to exact his revenge on Jess for taking all his fame and glory away from him. Jess needs to end the game once and for all, but he wonders if he'll end up finally taking a seat in hell right next to Martin Creed before the game is over.

Jess is turning in some dead men for the bounty to the sheriff of Allentown when suddenly a stagecoach rides in. The stagecoach was robbed and one woman, Nancy Shuler, whose husband was killed during the robbery, was kidnapped by the three men responsible. Jess immediately drops everything and goes after the three men and rescues Nancy in the nick of time. On the way back to Allentown, Nancy makes Jess an offer for him to escort her to Stratton, Texas, where she and her husband were headed to. He refuses the job offer and warns her that there has been a lot of Indian attacks taking place between Allentown and Stratton, but she is insistent on making the trip one way or another. Basil Thorndike, the second best bounty hunter next to Jess, shows up and his intention is to kill Jess because Jess is collecting so much bounty money. This is causing a disturbance with the other bounty hunters as well because they, too, haven't been able collect any bounties. Now the other bounty hunters are talking about teaming up to take Jess out of the business. Jess changes Thorndike's mind by offering him one thousand dollars to escort Nancy to Stratton. Before they leave though, his feelings of guilt and his mistrust of Thorndike forces him to go along on the trip to Stratton with Thorndike and Nancy. Things are bad enough, but it gets worse when they come across a half-dead half-breed Apache along the trail and Thorndike has a hatred for Indians since they murdered his family. Jess insists on taking the Apache, Black Raven, to Stratton. He finds out that three men had left Black Raven for dead and kidnapped his half-breed squaw, Little Feather. Once Jess gets Nancy safely to Stratton and keeps Black Raven locked up secretly in the Stratton Hotel, he waits for Raven to recuperate enough for him to travel. When they leave Stratton, Thorndike agrees to join them as long as he gets to keep the bounty money from the three men who kidnapped Little Feather. The hunt to find Little Feather and the three men who took her turns into a nightmare for Jess. He's towing around Black Raven dressed up as a white man and after they find and rescue Little Feather, Raven insists that Little Feather join them on the hunt for the three men who kidnapped her. He finds himself with two half-breed Apache Indians, one dressed like a white man and one dressed like a white woman, along with a bounty hunter who hates Indians and might shoot Jess the first chance he gets.

Jess is on the hunt for more wanted men when he suddenly realizes that he is the one being hunted. It seems that the other bounty hunters in the business are getting frustrated with Jess, who keeps collecting on all the larger bounties on wanted men. The bounty hunters then conspire to take him out of the business once and for all. Basil Thorndike, the second best bounty hunter in the business, who helped Jess a while back, becomes an unlikely ally and helps Jess again against the mounting number of bounty hunters attempting to kill him. True to his nature, Jess changes the game by going on the offensive, finding and confronting the other bounty hunters and forcing their hand. Lead starts flying and men start dying and Jess wonders if this will finally be his turn to meet the devil.

Jess finds himself back in Stratton, Texas, to turn in a corpse for the bounty. He finds himself working with his friend Sheriff John Bodine again when all of a sudden, Frank Reedy shows up in town unannounced. Reedy explains to Jess that he needs him to accompany a private stagecoach from Oklahoma City to Juarez, Mexico. The private coach is carrying Matthew Hannigan, who is a personal representative from the President of the United States along with four tough bodyguards and Matthew's wife, Melinda, who is the daughter of one of the richest men in Mexico. Jess is to deliver them safely to Juarez, Mexico, to meet with a personal representative of the Mexican President to resolve a border dispute that is about to boil over and possibly start another war between Mexico and the United States. At first, Jess refuses, but when Reedy explains all the details, he finally agrees; but only because if he takes the job, the Mexican government will lift the twenty-five thousand dollars in bounty money on his head for his killing of the once famous Mexican General, Pablo Zoreles, along with lifting the warrant on Jess' head. Jess makes John Bodine accompany him on the long and arduous journey and when he meets the representative of the President of the United States, the conflicts begin. The bodyguards don't like the fact that Jess is to lead the group and Matthew Hannigan's wife, Melinda, slowly makes an unspoken connection with Jess along the way. The trip to Juarez ends up being a long and dangerous one, fraught with robbers and Indians and to make matters worse, Jess becomes enamored with Melinda and he begins to wonder whether or not they'll make it to Juarez alive.

Jess makes good on his promise to Juan Hernandez to bring in the evil murderous Mexican outlaw called Machete and hand his head over to the Mexican government. His job is tough enough, tracking him through New Mexico Territory, but once he sees the carnage Machete leaves behind, he wants to catch Machete and bring him to justice in the worst way. His job is hard enough, but he soon learns that Machete has a faithful flock of followers who believe his every word and would take a bullet for him to keep him safe. His job becomes even more complicated when he finds out that Machete's flock of followers are made up primarily of young men and even a few young women. Jess has to find a way to finally get to Machete without killing the young men and women in his flock, but they keep getting in his way, forcing him to consider doing some things that almost makes his quite the job of hunting Machete. The thought, however, of leaving Machete to roam the New Mexico Territory, murdering and butchering innocent women, forces him to continue his hunt for Machete knowing full well that he might have to kill some of his flock, who seem to be brainwashed and have no apprehension about giving their young lives for Machete.

Jess travels to Laredo on the hunt for another wanted man, but when he arrives, he finds himself becoming reluctantly involved in another dispute between two cattle barons. He tries not to get involved, but he eventually finds himself forced to take a side. The richest cattle baron, Harvey Landry, seems to have money to throw around and he begins to buy up many of the businesses in Laredo, along with buying the services of the town’s Mayor and four councilmen along with the Sheriff. When Jess returns with the dead body of the man he had been hunting down, he receives a cold shoulder from the Sheriff and the town’s elected officials. Harvey Landry makes the mistake of pushing Jess a little too hard, and Jess decides that Landry is the real problem and he becomes a thorn in Landry’s side. Landry keeps throwing hired guns after Jess, but he keeps killing them, forcing Landry to hire two of the best guns in the business. Jess accidentally discovers something odd about all the money Landry has been throwing around and he makes contact with United States Marshal Frank Reedy. When Reedy answers, Jess discovers that Landry isn’t who he seems to be and before it’s over, a lot of blood is spilled on the streets of Laredo and Landry’s secret is finally uncovered.

Jess is busy doing what he does best, hunting down the worst of men and collecting their souls and the bounty on their heads, when he get an emergency wire from his hometown, Black Creek, Kansas. The News is horribly grim, and he becomes filled with hate and rage at the news about Annie McCracken’s murder at the hands of the three Bowen Brothers. He returns to Black Creek and sets out to hunt down the Bowen brothers, and as he does, he feels an evil presence enveloping him. Someone is trying to kill him, but he had no idea of whom or what it is and he won’t let it stop him from his goal of making the Bowen brothers pay for what they did. His hunt turns deadly and bloody as he trails the brothers through Kansas and Texas. In the end, he is forced to do something even he thought he would never do, but he is given no choice in the matter. He chooses to continue doing what he does best and hunt down the worst of men and not let the devil collect his soul,

After Jess leaves Annie McCracken’s grave site for the last time after hunting down the men responsible for her death and sending every one of them to the devil, he finds himself helping a couple with a young boy who are being robbed out on the trail. He escorts them to a small town in Texas. While there, he runs into a rich and very spoiled woman who is being guarded by four tough guards and riding in a fancy custom coach. Jess starts putting things together and discovers that a bunch of thugs are waiting to ambush the coach and kidnap her, but before he can get to the coach, he’s too late and the rich woman is gone. He ends up receiving a wire from the rich woman’s husband, Tripp Parker, who hires Jess to rescue his wife from Larkin and his bunch and he agrees to allow a former Texas Ranger, Stan Cooke, to ride along with him and take down Pence Larkin and his gang and get Mrs. Parker back safely. Jess is hell bent on serving up some cold justice to Larkin and his bunch, but it proves to be a tougher job than he thought. Jess and Cooke travel from one town to another to find the men who took her and his plan is to deliver nothing short of cold justice at the end of a gun barrel.

Jess comes across a preacher and two nuns in a broken down wagon along the trail. He escorts them to the next town to get them a new wheel for their wagon. Once the wagon is fixed, Jess is ready to part ways and continues on his hunt for more wanted men, but the preacher and two nuns finally convince him to escort them to the next town. He reluctantly escorts Preacher Weaver, Sister Jane and Sister Maude to the next town where a strange murder occurs. Jess continues to escort them to one town after another on the way to Juarez, Mexico, but strange murders continue to happen whenever they are in town. Jess begins to become suspicious and after a bond forms between him and Sister Jane, he agrees to continue to accompany them to Juarez, Mexico, where Preacher Weaver claims he and the two nuns will preach to the heathens there. By the time they arrive in El Paso, Texas, the last town before crossing into Juarez, Mexico, Jess finally gets the confirmation about his suspicions with the help of United States Marshal Frank Reedy, who wires him some information that puts all the pieces of his suspicions together. The crossing into Juarez will be an interesting one and one that will leave more than a few people surprised.

Jess was on the hunt for Chance Beauregard when he runs into a trapper, Chad Buntner, who is down on his luck. He agrees to let him ride with him just long enough to catch Beauregard, but Buntner turns out to be cursed with bad luck. Things keep happening to Buntner, and when Jess tries to leave him behind, Buntner takes a bullet meant for Jess. He feels guilty about Buntner taking the bullet, so he reluctantly agrees to let him accompany him. Along the way, they run into a cattle rancher, George Wesley, who is in a feud with an unscrupulous sheep rancher by the name of Barney Fiddler. Wesley has a couple of his men transport two hundred thousand dollars to his bank in San Antonio. When they end up dead and the money is missing, Wesley runs into Jess and convinces him to find the men responsible for the killings and get his money back. Jess takes the job, but he’s not sure he’ll survive this one with Buntner having one problem after another. He begins to wonder if he’ll ever finish the job or end up with a dirt blanket because of Buntner and his seemingly cursed luck that hangs over them like a dark cloud.

Jess is on the trail of the ruthless killer, Bill Hangston, who is wanted dead or alive for the heinous crimes of murder and rape of a young woman who had two young children. On his way to Wooster, Texas, he runs into some of Rudy Stalling’s men and one of them, Earl Lancaster, accidentally implies that Hangston works for Mr. Stalling. Jess tells Lancaster that if Hangston doesn’t come to Wooster to meet his fate, he’d come out to Stalling’s place and kill him and whoever got in his way. Rudy Stalling gives Hangston two choices. Either turn himself into the law in Wooster, or make a run for it. Hangston strangely decides to turn himself into the law, knowing Jess’s reputation. After Hangston breaks out of jail, with the help of two of Rudy Stalling’s lead men, Jess goes after Hangston, but Stalling wants him to take Lancaster with him to make sure he finds out who helped Hangston break out of jail. Jess, having his reasons, allows Lancaster to accompany him. Meanwhile, the rustlers who have been stealing Stalling’s cattle are identified during a gunfight between Stalling’s men and the McLowrey brothers and their gang of thieves. Stalling hires Jess to hunt down the McLowrey brothers and Lancaster, who never seemed to fit in as a hired gun, agrees to go along with Jess on the hunt. During the chase, Lancaster slowly begins to change his ways and tries to find redemption for himself, vowing never to hire his gun out again. Jess doesn’t entirely trust him and doesn’t believe he can redeem himself. The hunt for the McLowrey brothers turns out to be a bloody and dangerous one with a trail of bodies left along the way. They've taken over the town of Ferguson, Texas, and Jess has to find a way to get to them without harming any of the innocent townsfolk living there.

Jess is on the hunt for a wanted man who he finds in the town of Navarro, Texas. While there, he saves the owner of a saloon and his young son, Dudley. He leaves Navarro only to be sought out by Dudley again who asks for his help. Jess returns to Navarro to help Dudley and his pa, but while there, he finds out that the town officials seem to have a strange grip on the townsfolk. All the men in town are afraid and won’t fight against the town officials and a rich rancher seems to have some strange dealings going on. He leaves Navarro again and runs into two Texas Rangers, who have been trailing the same man he is hunting. They team up for a while and Jess and the two Rangers travel to Navarro, where the Rangers arrest the newly appointed sheriff after finding out he is wanted for petty crimes. Jess leaves again, believing the two Texas Rangers are staying in Navarro to keep the peace and maybe find out what is really going on. When he find out that Dudley has been hurt and his pa is back in jail after losing his saloon to the bank and that the madam of the local whorehouse has finally confronted the Mayor and the Sheriff, he returns to Navarro to straighten it up once and for all, but the only help he finds in town is Daisy and her girls at the whorehouse.

Jess is on the hunt for the desperado, Emilio Eads; and after putting him down, he takes his dead body into the town of Clancy, Texas, for the reward. While there, he meets a Mexican Lieutenant who is on the American side of the border with soldiers looking for a murderous thug who had been killing young girls in Mexico, but has now moved into Texas. The bounty on the faceless man called Black Heart is five thousand dollars, but whoever catches him must take him to Mexico to face execution there. Jess leaves Black Heart to the Mexican army, not wanting to chance riding into Mexico to claim the bounty. But that all changes when the United States Marshal’s Division issues a warrant on Black Heart and a bounty in the amount of five thousand dollars, dead or alive. Who will get to Black Heart first and find out exactly who this murderous killer is? More young girls start disappearing and the race to find him heats up. How many more young girls will have to perish at the hands of this merciless killer before either Menendez or Jess catches up to the very evasive and faceless killer? Will they team up or will they work separately?

Jess is doing what he always does, hunting down the worst of killers when he runs into a young boy, Jamie Williett. Jess finds out that the man he is hunting killed Jamie’s father. Jamie gets shot while attempting to kill the man and Jess is there when it happens. Feeling somewhat responsible for Jamie getting hurt, Jess hangs around to make sure he doesn’t attempt to go after the killer again, but Jamie takes off after him on his own without telling Jess. When Jess finds out what Jamie is up to, he tracks him down and stays with him to keep him from taking another bullet from the killer. A long journey ensues and the two of them face many obstacles along the way. Jess has his hands full, keeping Jamie safe, while trying to get him to his mother in one piece.

Jess is on his way to Laredo, on the hunt for the murderous thug Chuck Barker. Shortly after he arrives, his old friend John Bodine shows up wearing his United States Marshal’s badge. He has two other marshals with him and their assignment is to transport three of the deadly Weston gang to San Antonio for a hanging. Jess reluctantly agrees to accompany them. Three of the other Weston gang members, led by Billy Weston, successfully attacks the jail wagon. One of the marshals Bodine brought with him is killed and the other is hanging onto life by a thread. The hunt is on as Jess and Bodine team up again to track down the six members of the Gang, who don’t make it any easier after they split up, three of them riding west and three riding north. But Jess isn’t one to give up once he’s committed, and this time is no exception.

Jess is on the hunt for two wanted men when he runs across a wagon on the trail. Three men are being paid to escort four prostitutes to the town of Woodward. Jess immediately feels a connection to one of the women, but he doesn’t know why. He heads to Hayden, Texas, to turn in two corpses to the law in town. He runs into an aging bounty hunter by the name of John Booth who is down on his luck and hunting a man in Hayden. Jess helps him catch his man. While he’s waiting for his bounty money, the wagon with the four women ride into Hayden to get a wheel fixed. He has supper with them and the wagon pulls out of Hayden the next day on the way to Woodward. Jess gets paid his bounty money and leaves town, but when he hits the trail where it splits off, one going southeast and one going due east, something pulls him unwillingly toward the direction of the wagon carrying the women. Before he knows it, he’s helping to rescue them from certain death, and one of them seems to have some mysterious effect on him. He decides to make sure they get to Woodward safely and the trip turns out to be anything but easy. He hires the aging bounty hunter Booth and a burly man by the name of Anvil to accompany him on the trip. Jess is determined to get them safely to Woodward, all the while struggling with his emotions about one of the women and trying to figure out why.

Jess is on the hunt for a wanted man by the name of Elmer Gatson. He finally hunts him down near the town of Kingston, Texas. When he travels to Kingston to turn in Gatson’s body for the bounty, he runs into a man by the name of Jude Starlyn, who comes to Jess’s defense and he feels somewhat indebted to him. He runs into Starlyn again in another town and quickly realizes it’s not by accident. Starlyn makes a business proposal to him, but he’s is not sure he wants the job. He agrees to let Starlyn ride along with him until he makes a decision and they form an unspoken friendship along the way. When they finally reach the town of Woodland, Jess and Starlyn meet with a rancher by the name of Tom Brady. He offers Starlyn and Jess a job that pays five thousand dollars each. Starlyn takes the job, but Jess wants to talk to some of the other ranchers in the area first before deciding. Things begin to happen that makes Jess wonder if Starlyn picked the right man to work for. They quickly find themselves on opposite sides, neither man wanting to hurt the other. Matters become more complicated by the day and when a range war starts to ignite, Starlyn begins to realize that he might be working for the wrong side. Jess doesn’t want to kill Starlyn, but he will if it becomes necessary.

Jess is doing what he does best. Hunting down the worst of men for the bounty on their heads and stopping them from committing any more heinous crimes against the innocent. He rides into the town of Grayson, Texas, with a dead body in tow. There, he finds a beautiful young woman by the name of Julie Handy, who has two sons. He immediately becomes attracted to her and his mind begins a tug of war within itself. One part of him wants to stop hunting men, stay with Julie and try a new way of life. The other tells him he’s not finished with ridding the west of the worst of men. He was finding himself at a crossroads with his life. The struggle continues in his head, but then things turn deadly. Three murders and a bank robbery in Grayson, along with a dire threat to Julie’s safety, force him back into the business. One of the three men who robbed the bank, sends his two partners back to Grayson to kidnap Julie. He hits the trail hard with anger and vengeance coursing through his veins. Along the way, the struggle within him continues. Can he choose another way of life or does he have to continue on the one that was chosen for him. That was a decision he would have to make once he found Julie, praying she would still be alive when he did.

Jess finds himself in Destin, Texas, shooting it out with three outlaws who are hell-bent to stop him from taking down Harvey Millican, a man who raped and murdered a young girl. When the smoke clears and Millican is dead, an old man by the name of Grant Sackett talks Jess into letting him travel with him to Luden, Texas, where he can turn in Millican’s body for the bounty on his head. While there, he receives an urgent request from United States Marshal Frank Reedy telling him to make it to the town of Washburn, Texas, where John Bodine is waiting for him. Washburn is the town where a ruthless gang of robbers and murderers, led by Wilfred Stanley, murdered a young woman and her two young daughters during a bank robbery. When Reedy meets with Jess and Bodine in Washburn, the three of them team up together to hunt down Stanley and his gang. The hunt takes a deadly turn when they are ambushed and Bodine and Reedy are seriously wounded. Stanley and his remaining thugs get away when Jess has to escort Reedy and Bodine to the closest town to get to a doctor. He leaves Reedy and Bodine in Trumbel and sets out by himself to hunt down the last three outlaws. They make his job difficult by splitting up and heading in three different directions, but Jess in not one to give up once he sets his mind to something. The hunt turns deadly and bloody, and Jess finds himself hoping that Reedy and Bodine get well enough to help him finish the job.

Jess makes a stop in a small dilapidated town in northern Texas called Dundee to turn in the dead body of a rapist and murderer. The town, which used to be a bustling and thriving place, is slowly heading downward. He meets some of the people there and even stays the night with Elmer, a poor man he takes a liking to. He leaves Dundee to travel to Clearwater, where he meets Eruin Resch, the owner of a gold mine that is about to shut down. Resch hires Jess to help guard his last shipments of gold to the town of Crater to be put on the train and transferred to Missouri. He discovers that Beecher Stillson, a well-known bank robber is hanging around the Dundee area and that some bad hombres are going there to meet up with him. Jess unknowingly kills three of Stillson’s men before they make it to the hideout where the rest of his gang are waiting. Jess starts putting things together and the lead starts flying. Jess has to make sure the last three gold shipments make it to Crater safely. In the meantime, he starts investing in the town of Dundee to bring it back to the way it was years ago, hoping to convince Resch into investing in his old hometown as well. As the town comes back to life, it attracts some good people, along with some bad. Can Jess save the town of Dundee while making sure the gold shipments get safely to their destination all at the same time?

Jess is on his way to Rasher, Texas, to find Harvey Spence before he returns to his hometown of Black Creek, Kansas. Along the way, he runs into an old man by the name of Woodson and his grandson, Jacob. Woodson makes toys for a living and was heading to the next town to sell some of them, but Spence ends up stealing his wagon of toys, leaving Woodson and Jacob on foot. Jess helps them get their wagon full of toys back, but when Jess is ready to dole out justice to Spence, Jacob convinces Jess not to kill him. Jess relents and turns Spence in alive. He convinces Woodson and Jacob to join him in Black Creek for Christmas. They agree to accompany him and along the way they run into a young couple who are moving after losing their clothing business and house to the bank. Jess offers to set up Woodson, Jacob and the young couple in Black Creek. What happens after they get there turns out to be quite a surprise, especially for Jess.

Jess leaves Black Creek, Kansas, where he enjoyed a wonderful Christmas with all his friends. Now, he’s back to the business of hunting down the worst of killers for the bounty on their head. His first hunt is for Craig Lancaster, which takes him into the middle of New Mexico Territory and a town called San Pedro. He then stops in a town called Haystack, where he meets a retired lawman by the name of Jake Hayden. Hayden tells him about how he’s on his way to help an old friend in need. It seems his old friend’s daughter has been kidnapped by one of the outlaws he had sent to prison years ago. Hayden talks Jess into joining him on his journey. Jess finds himself helping Hayden and two other old retired lawmen, the youngest of which is pushing sixty. The men they go after are dangerous killers and Jess finds himself being slowed down by one man that can’t see, one that can’t hear and another who can’t remember things. He begins to wonder if he’ll ever rescue the daughter before one of the men he’s riding with gets him killed.

Jess finds himself still working in the territory of New Mexico after leaving Squire Steen, Sheppard Dace and Jake Hayden back in the town of Broughton after helping the three old lawmen rescue Sally Steen. He finds himself in a shootout with Willie McIntyre in the town of Sheridan. He finally kills McIntyre after he took a young woman hostage in Dregs Saloon. The woman, Chastity, is a prostitute who works there and she hires Jess to hunt down and kill an outlaw by the name Vilmer Pritchard, who murdered and butchered her younger sister Rachael. She warns him that Pritchard rides with a bunch of thugs led by a man they call Reverend. Jess goes on the hunt for Pritchard and ends up running into a woman bounty hunter by the name of Wildcat. She’s good with a gun, tough as nails and seems to be on a mission to bring down as many of Reverend’s men as she can by herself. The farther south Jess rides into New Mexico, the more he learns about the Reverend, and what he discovers, he doesn’t like. Events seem to push Jess and Wildcat together and the more he learns about Wildcat, the more he likes her.

Jess finds himself in the town of Appleton, Texas, where he finds Lance ‘Lucky’ Leyden. Finding no law in town, he hauls the body to the town of Avery to make a claim for the bounty on Leyden’s head. While there, he discovers that the next man he’s hunting, Lowe Rogan, is hanging around a town everyone calls Hades. They claim that the town rose up from the depths of hell and is rife with demons and witches. Jess doesn’t believe any of it. He finds the town and discovers that it has been taken over by the Roper brothers and their gang of cold-blooded killers, including Lowe Rogan. Jess tracks Rogan from Hades to the town of Chilton, where he ends up killing him and another man by the name of Arron Carmichael. The law in Chilton, along with all the townsfolk, are terrified of the Roper brothers and their men. They believe that the town of Hades is cursed. Jess demands that the town marshal pay him his bounty on Rogan and he does so reluctantly. Roper’s men take revenge on the town of Chilton by hanging the town marshal, leaving Jess feeling responsible for it. He vows to remove every cold-blooded killer from Hades and save the town, but he’s up against some of the worst killers in the west. Then, the brother of Arron Carmichael, Jason, shows up in Chilton to kill Jess as a revenge killing. But surprisingly, Jason teams up with Jess to rid Hades of the Roper brothers and their ruthless gang of killers. Jess quickly finds out that Carmichael is suffering from bad memories of the Civil War and worries that Carmichael might just get him killed. The battle begins, lead starts flying and men start dying. Jess hopes that he’s still standing when it’s over, but he finds the job of saving what’s left of Hades a much more difficult task. At the same time, he wonders if Carmichael is helping only to find the perfect time to kill him for killing his brother Arron.

Jess is on the hunt for his next prey, Britt Hanlon, after leaving the newly named town of Williamstown, Texas, formerly known as Hades. He was about to give up on Hanlon and move on to the next man on his hunt list when he finally finds Hanlon and another wanted man in Wickerville, Texas. Ed Treadwell, a wealthy man who owns the Gold Palace Saloon in Wickerville, offers him a job as his personal guard. Jess turns the offer down and friction begins between the two. Jess starts finding out that things aren’t quite the way they appear in Wickerville, but he has no proof of any wrongdoing. He starts asking questions and that leads him to the town of Sundown and George Rustenburg. Rustenburg is a wealthy business owner in Sundown and when Jess visits the town, he finds out that one of the men on his hunt list, Watt Gainsforth, is working for Rustenburg as a guard at his gambling establishment. Jess kills Gainsforth and has to travel to the county sheriff’s office in Butterfield, Texas, because the marshal of Sundown refuses to pay the bounty on Gainsforth. Jess is quickly making both Treadwell and Rustenburg nervous for some unknown reason that piques his interest even more. The more questions he asks and the more he delves into the business dealings of the two wealthy men, the more trouble he seems to find himself in. As he rides back and forth between several towns, he seems to find trouble in every corner and he has the distinct feeling that all the while, someone is trailing him.

Jess is on the hunt for the vicious cold-blooded killer, Trent Bellamy. Bellamy has eluded him for a long time, but he knows Jess in on his tail. Bellamy sets up an ambush for him and shoots Jess off his horse, but seconds before Bellamy finishes him, he kills Bellamy. Left for dead on the trail, Dr. Phil Johnston and his daughter, Willow, come across him on the ground, unconscious and barely breathing. Willow knows a lot about Jess and his reputation. They load him and Bellamy into their wagon and take him to the town of Cooper, where Willow nurses him back to health. While there recuperating, a slick-looking man comes to town in search of Jess. He intends on killing him as a revenge killing, but the bank in Cooper gets robbed by some thugs who belonged to Bellamy’s gang. During the robbery, Willow gets shot along with the marshal in town. Jess leaves Cooper the next day after the robbery in search of the two men who robbed the bank. The gunslinger who vowed to kill him, Abel Winburne, volunteers to ride with Jess in search of the robbers. Then, the marshal, who was wounded in the robbery, agrees to let the two hired guns that Jess threatened to kill when they were beating up a young boy in the middle of the street join the posse. Jess finds himself leading a posse made up of two hired guns that don’t like him, a wounded marshal and a gunslinger who has promised to kill him when the robbers are caught and the money is returned. The ride is long, frustrating and seeming hopeless as they chase the robbers halfway across the state of Texas. As the pursuit continues, he worries if he’ll get shot by the robbers or one of the men involved in the posse.

Jess is on the hunt for more wanted men on his list. His travels eventually take him to the town of Hamburg, Texas, where he runs into an impetuous young kid by the name of Junior. The kid is seventeen and fancies himself as a seasoned gunslinger. He is pushed along by his two friends to challenge Jess to a gunfight. Jess tries his best to ignore the kid, but before he rides out of Hamburg, Junior forces his hand. In an unusual move and against his own survival instincts, Jess purposely wounds Junior, hoping it might teach the kid a lesson. He rides out of Hamburg on the hunt for a killer and bank robber by the name of Edmond Musk. He finds himself engaged in a gun battle with Musk and his partner when Junior suddenly shows up in the middle of it. Jess allows Junior to ride with him long enough to get him safely back to Hamburg where his intentions are to leave him there, but Junior refuses to part ways. Jess find himself having to teach Junior right from wrong so he might be able to survive to see his eighteenth birthday, but Junior’s reckless attitude and temper keep getting in the way, making Jess’s job of hunting the worst of men more difficult than ever.

Cripple Creek had a gold rush two years ago and the town was flush with people and money. Now, the town has become dilapidated and only a handful of miners pan for gold in the creek that is drying up from a long drought. Jess arrives in Cripple Creek, where he meets a woman by the name of Lucille Deveroux. He stays in town and while there, the miners begin finding gold again as the creek rises to previous levels caused by two separate and strange events. The gold rush is on again and it brings new miners and new wealth to Cripple Creek, but it also brings drifters, outlaws and thieves. The town has no law and Jess seems to be putting out fires left and right. Miners are being robbed, killed and some even suspiciously vanish. Jess tries to enforce some order in the town, even though he refuses to take the town marshal’s job when offered to him. Tempers flare and the problems grow. Jess wonders if he alone can bring order back to the town.

Jess is hot on the trail of wanted men again. After running down a ruthless killer by the name of Dorr Munn, Jess finds himself in the town of Howell, Texas, where he meets a man by the name of Champ Kiel. Kiel makes the mistake of challenging Jess and against his nature, Jess spares Kiel. Four men rob the bank in Howell, killing the bank manager and a teller. During their escape, they trample an old woman to death. A large personal bounty is placed on the men’s heads and Jess finds himself forced to team up with Kiel on the hunt for them. Their hunt takes them on a long and dangerous trek across a large part of Texas and Jess finds help from the most unexpected partner he’s ever worked with…Shadow.

Jess is hunting down the cold-blooded murderer Dale Gatewood. His hunt takes him to the town of Halesburg, Texas. While there, he receives an urgent message from United States Marshal Frank Reedy, informing him that he is needed in Woodward, Texas, as fast as his horses can carry him. Jess heads straight for Woodward, knowing that is the town where he set up the sister no one knows he has. There are two rich men feuding with one another and the town officials are up for sale to the highest bidder. Things in town go downhill fast. But when Jess finds out his sister, Beth, has been shot, the feud between the two men is the least of their worries. Jess is fueled with rage by the thought that the only family he has left might be taken away from him. He goes on the warpath and everyone soon learns that his way of settling scores is a whole lot different and a whole lot deadlier. Anyone or anything that stands in his way, quickly learns that they must pay a hefty price.

Jess finds himself in a standoff with a woman by the name of Maggie. She is protecting her lover, Kip Jude, who is a violent rapist of young girls. Maggie discovers that he has been deceiving her for years and she ends up killing him before Jess does. Jess turns the body in to the law in the next town and is surprised when Maggie shows up and asks him to escort her to Colorado in search of her sister. Along the way, they run into a medicine man called Red Moon sitting in the middle of the trail, supposedly waiting for Jess to show up. He informs Jess that he was sent to him by the spirits to escort him to his birthplace at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, so he can fulfill his destiny that has been told to him by his spirits in a vision. After agreeing to escort the medicine man, they begin a strange journey to Colorado. Jess becomes frustrated along the way and vows to drop them both off somewhere and let them continue on their own. But many unexpected and unexplained things happen along the way that make Jess believe that the medicine man truly did have a vision. They finish their journey and reach Red Moon’s birthplace by the side of a beautiful lake that now has a fishing camp nearby. They have to wait there for the exact right time that the medicine man must pass on to the spirit world.

Jess is still traveling through the state of Colorado heading back to his home territory of Texas when he finds himself in the town of Wilshire, Colorado, on the hunt for a killer by the name of Bernard Blackstone. He finds him and puts him down, but he has to take the corpse to the next town to turn it in for the bounty. Things take a strange turn when two desperate bounty hunters steal Blackstone’s body at night and take it to Fannin, Colorado, to put in a claim for the bounty, but Jess arrives before they can collect it. The two bounty hunters, down on their luck, inform Jess they know where two brutal killers with a high bounty on their heads are holed up, but they won’t tell him their whereabouts unless he agrees to let them go with him on the hunt. Jess finally agrees and the three of them leave Fannin to hunt for the killers when Shadow suddenly shows up. The trip gets interesting along the way and eventually, Jess meets a wanted gunslinger and gambler who needs to clear his name. Jess leaves the two bounty hunters behind and rides with this man on the hunt for the brothers who can clear his name. Along the way, they discover that they have something in common. They both have a lot of men who want to see them dead and under a dirt blanket, but neither is ready to meet their maker yet, especially Jess.

Jess leaves Halo, Texas, and Harvey Shane behind him as he travels to the town of Burton where two young girls were brutally raped and murdered by a crazed killer by the name of Orin Kaiser. After meeting with their mother, he promises to hunt Kaiser down and make him pay dearly for their murders. Things take a turn for the worse and Jess finds himself stuck in the town of Platteville, staying with a woman and her young son. But staying in one place for too long proves to be a dangerous thing for Jess and everyone around him. He finds himself in some deadly confrontations and knows he has to leave town soon, but he feels a debt of gratitude to the woman and young boy and it’s against his nature to cut and run from trouble. The hunt for Kaiser proves to be one of the most difficult and protracted ones, but he gets the help he needs from Shadow, a huge intelligent timber wolf who acts more like a human. Jess’s job is to bring Orin Kaiser to justice, but Shadow’s job is to make sure Jess doesn’t get killed in the process.

Jess finds himself facing off with three gunmen in Bannon, Texas, who had been beating up on an old man. After killing two of them and running the other one out of town, he runs into two Texas Rangers who question him about the two dead bodies still in the street. After a suitable explanation, and finding out who Jess is, the two Rangers invite him to ride with them after a ruthless killer, Sid Black. Jess declines, wanting to make it to Stratton, Texas, to propose a business venture to Henry Stratton and finally take some time to rest up. After finally reaching Stratton, he learns about the murders of the two Texas Rangers, whom he declined to help and he feels somewhat responsible. After proposing his business venture to Henry Stratton, he finds himself riding with John Bodine again, going after Sid Black.

After his rest in Stratton, Texas, Jess is back to doing what he does best, hunting down the worst of men. He finds himself in the town of Willow, looking for the next man on his list, Travis McClellan. After killing McClellan, he finds out that he worked for a man by the name of Theo Keene, who seems to have a grip around the necks of the people in Willow. Jess gets in the middle of the town’s problems and then gets a warning by the county sheriff, who threatens him with jail time if he doesn’t move on. Things heat up between the county sheriff, Theo Keene and Jess. While involved in the mess in Willow, Jess receives an urgent request from United States Marshal, Frank Reedy. He wants Jess to travel to a town outside of Denver, Colorado, to take a brutal killer by the name of Terry Treadway into custody from the town marshal there. The only problem is, Reedy wants Jess to bring him all the way back to Stratton, Texas, for a hanging. When Treadway starts resisting along the way, Jess isn’t sure Treadway will make it to Stratton alive or draped over the saddle of his packhorse Sharps.

Jess is on the hunt for a notorious killer, Eddie Fisher. He travels to Blood Creek, Texas, to search for him; but when he arrives, he finds more trouble than he bargained for. When he eventually arrives in Hackney, Texas, to deliver Fisher’s body in for the bounty, he ends up leading a posse at the request of the town marshal. It seems that wherever he goes, he finds trouble or it finds him. A cattle baron’s son is murdered and Jess ends up on another mission, hunting down the man who killed him. That turns out to be a deadly hunt, and one of them isn’t coming back alive. Luckily for Jess, his loyal companion shows up just when he needs him the most.

Jess in on the hunt for Lane Jefferson, which takes him to the town of Calico, Texas, where things don’t seem right. The temporary governor of Texas has seen fit to appoint three hired guns as his county sheriff and deputies. Jess knows the three men and knows they shouldn’t be wearing badges. He hangs around Calico long enough to sort things out, but then he gets an urgent message from United States Marshal Frank Reedy. It seems his good friend, the female bounty hunter only known as Wildcat, has murdered a man in New Mexico Territory and now has a price on her head. Jess, knowing that she would never kill without good reason, enlists the help of both Reedy and Bodine to safely escort her to Stratton, but a lot of angry and hungry bounty hunters have other plans to kill Wildcat for the bounty, and put her out of the business; but the only way that will happen, is over Jess’s dead body. Lead flies and men die. Who will be left standing in the end?

Jess is on the tail of the murderous Bryant Taber, who seems hell-bent on killing as many people as he can before someone stops him. His hunt takes him to Kern, a town seemingly on the rebirth. He kills Taber, but not before Taber almost kills the new town marshal, an inexperienced young man who knows nothing about protecting a town. While there, two of the town council try to talk Jess into staying for a while, telling him they fear the Lockton brothers and their gang of thugs are going to return to the town. But Jess is on the hunt for his next man and with no evidence that the Lockton gang is on their way to Kern, he moves on to his next prey. Jess runs into an old friend and hired gun, Jude Starlyn, who was guarding a large cash deposit. Jess happens to run in to one of the town councilmen and he informs him that the Lockton gang arrived in Kern and had already killed one of the locals and managed to take over the town. Jess finds himself engaged in another battle with a bunch of killers and thugs, but he has help from Starlyn, who is deadly with a six-shooter. The fight begins and blood will spill, but will it be any of Jess’s or Starlyn’s?

Jess is on the hunt for a vicious killer when an old woman stumbles into his camp. She seems to have lost her memory. He helps the woman and takes her to the town of Hinkle, where she lives. While in Hinkle, a cattle drive comes to town a week earlier than expected. The marshal doesn’t have any deputies yet, so he convinces Jess to hang around and help until his deputies arrive. The boss running the cattle drive tries to hire Jess on as a hired gun after Jess kills one of his guards, but he turns down the offer. He has a few more encounters with some of the guards and eventually he kills another one. The deputies finally arrive and Jess leaves Hinkle to search for another vicious killer, Bruce Payne, who leaves a trail of dead bodies behind him. Payne proves to be a very elusive prey and Jess finds himself in several different predicaments. Trouble seems to get in his way at every turn, but he is determined to catch Payne and end his killing spree for good.

Jess is on the hunt for a cagey killer by the name of Julian Stuart, which leads him to the town of Springdale, Texas. There he meets an old gunfighter by the name of Orin Vail. Vail is tiring of the business of hiring his gun out and facing challenges from the young gunfighters looking to make a reputation for themselves by taking him out. Jess agrees to help him get to his pa’s ranch in Oklahoma, but first, they have to team up to catch Julian Stuart and a few more wanted men. Their hunt turns out to be a dangerous and deadly one. The young gunfighters keep coming at Vail to prove themselves, and Vail’s hand speed is slowing down, which only draws more of them out. To make matters worse, Jess has no shortage of men who want him dead as revenge for some of the men he has killed. Jess and Vail find themselves facing their worst adversaries along their journey. Vail’s past is tormenting him and Jess’s future is cloudy, as more and more men come to put him in the ground.

Jess is on the hunt for another wanton killer by the name of Ty Fulton. Along the way, he comes across an old man, his daughter and granddaughter. They were on their way to a town called Carrington to start a new business. Jess camps at their site, but the old man passes away during the night. Not wanting to leave a woman and her young daughter riding the trail alone, he decides to escort them to their destination safely. Luckily, he ends up finding his wanted man while doing so. He’s ready to head back out on the hunt for the next man on his list, but a call from United States Marshal Frank Reedy makes him change course. He heads to a town called Arville to meet with John Bodine. Jess has to pin his federal badge on again and join Bodine on a special assignment. A man rich enough to buy the entire state of Texas wants an entire town under his thumb, but Jess and Bodine have other ideas. Blood is spilled and graves are filled as a struggle ensues between them and a rich and powerful man.

Jess’s next hunt takes him to the town of Canton, Texas. He ends up in a running shootout with his prey, Hank Dupree, and sends him straight to the devil. But during the shootout, the marshal is wounded by Dupree and now can’t perform his duties. If that wasn’t bad enough, the deputy ends up wounded before Jess gets to leave town, leaving Canton completely unprotected from the drifters and troublemakers who seem to continue to plague the town. Jess is asked to stay until the marshal or the deputy can resume their duties. He agrees, but has no idea of how much trouble is coming his way. It seems that every drifter and troublemaker in Texas shows up in town. Guns blaze and bodies start filling up the local cemetery. Before he leaves the town of Canton, he has three new men to hunt, but this time it’s personal.

Jess is tracking a murderous monster, Mark Milton, through the state of Texas, but he keeps slipping through his fingers and leaving a trail of dead bodies behind. Things get more complicated when an unknown foe starts sending men to kill Jess, making his job of catching up to Milton more dangerous. As he hunts down the madman, he uncovers a plan to have him murdered, but still has no idea of who is behind it. By the time he finally kills Milton, he has information that will take him to St. Louis, Missouri, where he finds help from some old friends. They unravel the entire plot, Jess ends it in his usual manner. He then sets out with his friends to finish a hunt for a man in New Mexico Territory.

Jess’s hunt for Jon McBride leads him to a little no named town in Texas. He quickly dispenses his brand of justice and sends McBride to the hot coals of hell. As luck would have it, another killer shows up minutes before Jess leaves the town. When he finally rides out, he’s hauling two stinkers behind his packhorse. He takes the corpses to the town of Diablo, Texas, where he must deal with some less than desirable officials. After resolving the matter, he heads for the town of Sudbury on the hunt for the next man on his list. His hunt then takes him to Malvern, Texas, where he runs into a whole mess of trouble and a town marshal that doesn’t want him to leave. He sticks around for a few days, hoping to catch his next prey, Ben Essex, but things heat up in the town with people trying to find their fortune in the hills nearby. Before he leaves Malvern, he receives an urgent message from an old friend from his hometown of Black Creek, Kansas. He heads there and finds himself defending the town he loves once again. He is faced with drifters, a cattle drive, and a professional gunslinger who wants him dead for the reputation.

Jess is on his way back to Texas after ridding his home town of Black Creek, Kansas, from drifters and troublemakers. While he makes his way back toward Texas, he finds himself hunting another killer. That leads him to a trading post, where he finds the man he’s been looking for. He dispenses his cold justice on the killer and ends up staying the night there. While there, he meets three nuns who are traveling to a convent in southwest Oklahoma Territory. They quickly share their opinion about what he does for a living, killing men for money. After he leaves the trading post, he finds the stagecoach carrying the nuns along the trail. The shotgun rider and driver have been murdered, and all the cash the nuns had been carrying to the convent has been stolen. The nuns are alive and well, but now they inform him that he has been chosen to escort them to the convent and get their money back from the robbers. He refuses, but offers to help them to the next town, but they insist on him taking them all the way to the convent. He finds himself in a strange predicament, when his horses refuse to leave the nuns. He drives the stagecoach to the next town and again attempts to leave them, but his horses seem to have a mind of their own. Reluctantly, he submits himself to doing what they insist he must. The trip along the way is a strange one indeed. Things that go unexplained keep happening and Jess wonders who is really running things, him, the nuns, or someone else.

After leaving Sister Nadine and the other two nuns at the convent in Oklahoma Territory, Jess is back doing what he does best. He crosses back into Texas and heads to the town of Hoover, where he finds the man he’s hunting, Brian Reed. While in Hoover, he meets a hired gun by the name of Vic Pardo. Pardo finds the man he was hired to kill and easily dispatches him to an early grave. Not having another job after that, he convinces Jess to let him ride along with him for a while to make some extra money. They make a good team and hunt down some stone-cold killers together. Along the way, a fast draw expert from Boise, Idaho, confronts Jess. He wants to finish his unblemished career as an expert gunfighter by challenging Jess, but Jess quickly discovers that the gunfighter might love his whiskey more than his reputation. Then comes Hell Town…

Jess is on the hunt for Hank Shelly, which leads him to the spot where a stagecoach robbery took place with two men left dead on the ground. He tracks Shelly for a short while from the scene, but Shelly is covering his tracks well. That takes him to the town of Holly, where he meets a rich rancher by the name of Orton Ruse. He quickly discovers that Shelly, who had previously worked for the rancher, robbed the stagecoach and took one hundred thousand dollars that belonged to Ruse. Ruse offers Jess a large cash reward to hunt Shelly down and get his money back. Meanwhile, another man, who was inside the stagecoach when Shelly robbed it, decides to go after Shelly himself for the money. Their paths cross several times and Jess is not sure if he’s a friend or foe, but time will tell as the two men hunt for the elusive Hank Shelly.

Jess is on the hunt for the vicious Van McLarty and once he puts him down, he takes the body into the town of Palmdale, Texas, where he runs into a very disagreeable county sheriff and the Corker clan. It seems the Corker men think they run things around their area, including the county sheriff. After his run-in with three of the Corker men, the leader of the group, Hagar Corker, declares war on Jess and the town of Palmdale. The county sheriff rides out of Palmdale and leaves Jess to handle the clan by himself. Lead flies and blood is spilt before a truce can be agreed upon. After leaving Palmdale, Jess finds himself being held against his will on a moving train owned by a wealthy man by the name of John Roscoe. He offers $100,000 to the gunslinger who can take Jess in a duel. The train snakes its way through Texas, New Mexico Territory, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio, where Jess faces some of the deadliest gunfighters no one ever knew existed. His last challenge is with Roscoe, but Roscoe doesn’t play fair. After teaching Roscoe a lesson, Jess heads to Stratton, Texas for a quick visit, but Reedy has a deadly job waiting for him. One that requires his special set of skills. He has to hunt down a former Texas Ranger who is hiding in a huge forest, and he’s an expert with a sniper rifle. To make matters worse, the Ranger has gone completely mad. Jess goes in, but will he come out?

Before Jess leaves Stratton, Texas, U.S. Marshal Frank Reedy gives him an unwanted assignment. The job forces Jess to go north to the town of Loveland, Nebraska, to hunt two vicious killers, Bernie Crangle and Rueben Gideon. Jess doesn’t want to go because it’s the time of year when it can get cold in Nebraska. Worse, the only way to get there fast enough in the hopes of getting back to southern Texas, and a warmer climate, is to get on another train. He reluctantly agrees because he owes Reedy a favor. He makes his way on the hunt for the two vicious outlaws and seems to find trouble around every corner. The train he’s on is carrying a huge gold shipment, guarded by an old friend, Vic Pardo. There are rumors of a robbery attempt and trouble soon follows. He finally gets to Loveland, and starts his search for the two killers there, but they are leaving a trail of dead bodies in their wake. He needs to find them before the list gets longer, but he’s hampered by another bounty hunter and a woman who seems to have an interest in the two outlaws. After the job is finished, he heads south again, but the snow flies and the cold comes. By the time he arrives back in Stratton, another ally surprisingly shows up and Jess is not sure it’s a good sign or bad. One thing is for sure. He’ll soon find out.

While Jess would like nothing more than a good long rest after successfully ridding Nebraska of a few vicious outlaws, fate has a way of stepping in to spoil his plans. He’s met up with someone whose company he greatly enjoys, the beautiful but deadly female bounty hunter, Wildcat. It seems Wildcat has something special in mind, but it isn’t rest. The usually wild and dangerous territory of New Mexico has gotten much worse and she needs Jess’s help in cleaning out some of the worst gangs in the southern part of the region. Jess, Wildcat, John Bodine and Shadow all head to the southern part of New Mexico Territory. The only one not wearing a Deputy United States Marshals badge is the timber wolf, Shadow. The gangs of murderous outlaws who have fled from neighboring states to elude the law have no idea of the trouble heading their way. The killers are about to be treated like they’ve been treating their victims…with ruthless and deadly force.

Jess is back to bounty hunting in Texas, heading for a town called Huntersville where the next man on his hunt list is purportedly staying around. Before he gets there, he finds four men firing rifles at a young man hiding behind some trees, because they believe him to be a rustler. Jess stops the men and rescues young Andy and convinces the rancher that he’s innocent. Now, he has Andy following him around since he has no other family left, because the rancher already hung his two brothers. Before Jess leaves Huntersville, a triple murder is committed in the saloon and witnessed by a working girl named Molly. The hunt pursues, but Jess still has Andy to contend with. After Andy finds a fancy pearl handled Colt in an embossed black leather holster, he puts it on, but has no experience in using it. Jess continues on the hunt for the four killers, but he still has young Andy under his wing. Andy insists that Jess teaches him the way of the gun, but Jess worries it’ll send the boy on a path of no return or a path straight to hell.

Jess is on the hunt for Cliff Radish, and after he puts him down, he ends up taking the body to the town of Duston, Texas. The town marshal there happens to be Cliff’s older brother, Ernie. While there, two men gun down the marshal and he’s unable to perform his duties. Ernie Radish calls on Jess to protect the town until he can get out of bed and to make matters worse, a huge cattle drive will arrive in a few days. Jess finds himself dealing with hired guns, whores, drunken cowpunchers and drifters coming to town. He pins his United States Marshal’s badge on and takes over the law in Duston. The cattle drive leaves and the working girls try to hire Jess to escort them safely to Oklahoma City, but instead, he recommends they hire Rick Muller, a gambler and gunslinger from California, who happens to be hanging around Duston. Before Jess leaves town, he realizes that three outlaws are trailing the wagon of women. He quickly finds himself helping Muller transport the women, but trouble seems to show up at every turn. He has to deal with ambushers, gunslingers and men with a grudge against him.

Jess is on the hunt for his next prey, Max Thunder, which leads him to an almost deserted town called Appleton. He puts Thunder down and heads to the town of Pinkney, directly into another fight with the rest of the Thunder family. Bullets fly and two more men in the Thunder family die. While in Pinkney, he has an encounter with a woman by the name of Martha Heller. She doesn’t think much of what he does for a living. Three men attempted to rob the stagecoach she was riding in, but she shot two of them, wounding one of them seriously. Jess joins the posse on the hunt for the three men. They bring in three dead bodies but the stagecoach driver refuses to take Martha on the last leg of her journey to the town of Harrison, Texas, where she is supposed to take over as the teacher. Against Jess’s warnings, she travels alone to Harrison, but is almost raped and killed by one of the men Jess is hunting. He saves her life and escorts her to Harrison, where the schoolhouse has burned down. Jess begins to have feelings for Martha, but she is not happy with his life of bounty hunting. He leaves her in Harrison, but he feels as if he is leaving a part of himself there. He continues on the hunt for more bad men, but the memory of Martha Heller will haunt him for many years to come. When he continues on his hunt for more bad men, Shadow suddenly shows up. Then, he receives a special assignment from United States Marshal Frank Reedy. Two outlaws have hanged a Texas Ranger in Verde, Texas, and Reedy wants Jess to track them down. Before he begins his hunt for the two outlaws, his good friend John Bodine joins him and the hunt for the two murderers begins. The only problem is, the closer they get to the killers, the more dead bodies they find.

After leaving Jackson, Texas, Jess and Bodine head to Stratton, Texas, where Jess has agreed to take some time off and fish in the lake he and Henry Stratton built. Along the way, they stop off at the town of Berkshire. They quickly learn that the town’s officials, including the marshal, have turned the town into a haven for outlaws, charging them a daily fee to stay there without being bothered. At first, it seems to be harmless, as none of the outlaws bothers or harms the local townsfolk and the businesses in town charges the outlaws double for whatever they buy or consume. That quickly changes when a cold-blooded killer by the name of Jake Rickman rides into town and stays at the hotel. Bodine is awaiting a wire back from United States Marshal Frank Reedy, asking if they should interfere with the town’s operation. The answer from Frank Reedy is what Bodine expected: Pin their federal badges on and clean up the town. Jess kills a hired gun working for a cattle baron who has a huge ranch outside of Berkshire. The rancher tries to bribe Jess and Bodine with money, but when that doesn’t work, he tries to run them off with hired killers. Jess finds himself ducking bullets and facing the best gunslingers the cattle baron can buy…and he has no shortage of money. Just when they think things can’t get any worse, Frank Reedy is wounded by two outlaws passing through Stratton, Texas. Jess and Bodine want to leave Berkshire and hunt down the two attackers, but they still have to deal with the cattle baron until their replacements arrive.

In this 80th installment of the exploits of bounty hunter Jess Williams, he takes on some of his most evil foes yet. Sid Norton is a tough one. The notorious killer ambushes Jess, wounds him and heads in to finish him off. Just then a young woman living in the woods with her son fires at Norton and he rides away. The woman is named Mandy and her boy is Davey. Together they get Jess to their tent. Mandy cleans and stitches his wound and they wait for him to come around, hoping they’ve done enough to keep him alive. When Jess wakes up he’s grateful, of course, but also concerned about the two living alone in the woods. Although Mandy has spunk, the pair might not be as lucky the next time evil men arrive. He convinces them to go with him as he follows Norton’s trail to the next town. They find that Norton has continued his murderous ways, killing off the mayor and new town marshal of Deerfield, leaving the mayor’s wife to manage the general store they owned. Elsie, however, is in a wheelchair. Jess sets up Mandy and Davey to live with her and help run the store. Jess is anxious to end Norton’s reign of terror before the killer takes the lives of any others, but Norton has already acted. After killing two more people in Temperance, Texas, one the barkeep, Norton holes up in the saloon in a battle to the death. Jess wins that battle and then heads to California, Texas, to turn in the body. As soon as this task is finished a wagon arrives with a woman doctor clinging to life. She had earlier tended to Jess’s wounds, but after she treated one of the Coker brothers the ungrateful killer shot her and left her for dead. As Jess heads off to seek vengeance on the Coker brothers, he comes across an old friend, but not under happy circumstances. John Booth has been chasing a bad guy but now he’s lying in the dirt barely alive. They head to the town of Mulberry to get him treatment and go after the Cokers.

Jess left John Booth and the town of California, Texas, behind him as he headed for Bastion, Texas, where he hopes to find the next man he is hunting, Charlie Gibbon. When he rides into Bastion, Gibbon has already killed again and left. While in Bastion, he finds three Indians have been murdered, and no one knows why. When Jess pays a visit to the man they worked for, he hires Jess to track down the killers. Before he begins the hunt, he is surprised to find Wildcat in the same town. They team up together and hunt for the killers. The hunt turns deadly after the leader of the three killers murders his two partners and heads out alone. The chase is on. Meanwhile, Charlie Gibbon is still out there, leaving a trail of dead bodies behind him. Jess needs to finish this job and get back to the business of hunting Gibbon. To add to his list of things to do, Jess receives a wire from United States Marshal Frank Reedy about another bad guy in need of being hunted down and brought to justice, dead or alive.

Jess leaves Frank Reedy behind and heads to the town of Lockton, Texas, on the hunt for his next man, Lar Clemson. After bringing Clemson into Lockton to collect the bounty, he learns that a young woman, Crissy, has been kidnapped by four outlaws. Jess decides to track the men and find Crissy. Her freckled and red-haired brother, Red, goes along with him. They quickly find Crissy, but she has been brutalized by the four men. The terrible scene brings back Jess’s memories of his family’s murders, especially the ruthless torture and killing of his little sister, Samantha. After tempering his rage, Jess goes on the hunt for the four men, who are now all wanted dead or alive. Crissy’s brother is hell-bent on going with him. They start tracking down the men, but they prove to be elusive prey. Jess promised Red’s mother that he would do his best to protect him, but Red gets shot after freezing up during a gunfight with the four outlaws. Worried Red might be a liability, Jess has to decide whether the young man should continue the hunt or be sent home.

Jess finds himself in a gun battle with the crafty outlaw, Lewis Crocker, in Hempstead, Texas. Crocker has already shot the town marshal and escapes Jess’s grip. Jess eventually tracks Crocker to the town of Furman, but again, Crocker slips through his fingers. Worse, the outlaw uses dynamite to try to kill his pursuer. Jess sees the ambush in time to save himself, but his two horses are slightly wounded. While in Furman, a ranch hand working for a cattle baron finds Jess and offers him money to just talk with his boss, Adam Thatcher. Jess, knowing his horses won’t be able to ride hard for a few days anyway while they are tended to, agrees to the meeting. Thatcher had originally wanted to hire Jess to transport his daughter, Ruby, to Topeka, Kansas, but when Jess arrives, Ruby has run off with one of the ranch hands. Jess agrees to borrow a horse from Thatcher and find out where his daughter is, but things get complicated. The man Ruby is in love with is a kind-hearted fellow and Jess doesn’t want to hurt him. Separating the two seems impossible. Jess begins the task of escorting Ruby to Topeka. Along the way, trouble pops up again and again, making Jess’s job more dangerous. Meanwhile the elusive and crafty killer, Lewis Crocker, gets farther and farther from his grasp; however, as always, Jess is not one to give up easily.

Jess finally catches the next man on his hunt list, Andrew Poppet. In exchange for his life, Poppet reveals the location of the Boone gang, one of the most notorious gangs in the West. Lawmen and bounty hungers have been searching for them for months, but no one has been able to find them. Jess makes a deal with Poppet and locks him up in the jail in Waterville, Texas, with a promise that if Poppet is lying, he’ll come back and send him straight to hell with a bullet. He heads to Summerlin, where the gang is hiding out in a very secret location west of town. Surprisingly, when Jess arrives in Summerlin, he finds Wildcat, who is on the hunt for Laban Eastwood’s partner. If that isn’t enough of a surprise, he finds the huge timber wolf, Shadow, with Wildcat. The fact that Shadow is with her is an omen of some tough times ahead, but neither of them realizes just how tough things are going to get.

Before Jess leaves Wildcat in Summerlin, Texas, he receives a wire from United States Marshal Frank Reedy. He is assigned to hunt down the vicious outlaw, Pearly Bullock, and deliver him to Stratton, Texas…alive. The fact that Shadow stays with him when he leaves Summerlin is a clue as to how hard the assignment is going to be. As unhappy as he is with the idea of bringing Bullock in alive, things become worse when every bounty hunter finds out the reward is twenty-five thousand dollars. Every gunslinger and bounty hunter worth his salt begins hunting for Bullock, getting in Jess’s way at every turn. His job of getting Pearly back to Stratton alive becomes a difficult task, but he finds help in another gunslinger turned bounty hunter. They team up, but as things get worse, Jess begins to wonder if he should just shoot Pearly himself and be done with it. As they make their way to Stratton, they run into one problem after another, leaving a trail of dead bodies behind them. Jess begins to worry more about whether or not he’ll get to Stratton alive, much less get Pearly there.

After spending a week resting in his house on the lake in Stratton, Texas, and delivering Pearly Bullock there to be hung by United States Senator Mark Lusk, Jess is on the hunt for his next prey, Lee Mason. He encounters three men at a river and then runs into a lawless and inexperienced posse who are chasing after the men who robbed the bank in Glasser, Texas. He convinces the posse to let him go after the three robbers, who refuse to give up. He ends up killing all three men and returns their bodies to Glasser. While there, he runs into a young woman by the name of Nellie Lawson. He is captivated by her and spends the night with her. After hearing her story, he decides to help her catch the men who killed her parents and raped and tortured her for weeks. They began their hunt for the four men, who are all living under assumed names, but Jess is not one to give up easily.

Jess is heading to the town of Fleming on the hunt for Mark Fitzgerald. Before he makes it to Fleming, three men attempt to rob him. Things don’t go well for the robbers. When Jess continues on toward Fleming, he finds a young man by the name of Hud, who had been ambushed by the same three robbers. Hud is wounded and unconscious. Jess senses something off about the man, but isn’t sure what it is. After delivering Hud to the doctor in Fleming, Jess discovers that someone is trying to have him killed and paying money to the men who try. He continues on his mission of killing the worst outlaws, but the fact that men are being paid to kill him makes his job more dangerous. He leaves Fleming while Hud is still healing at the doctor’s office, but he has a strong feeling that it’s not the last time he’ll see the young man. He makes a decision to attempt to find the person who has been putting up the money to have him killed, but this proves to be an elusive and very dangerous journey.

On the way back from Kansas City, Kansas, to Texas, Jess is on the hunt for Buck Lochmann. After catching him, he takes the body to Richman, Kansas, where he meets an old friend, John Booth. He’s also a bounty hunter, but he’s almost too old for the business. Jess gives Booth a hand, but then they separate again. Jess hunts another man, and in the process, helps a woman and her young son, Doug. After transporting them to the town of Kensington, he ends up meeting Booth there again. Booth is planning on going after the vicious Anthony Clark gang, but Jess knows that Booth is not up to the task and might get himself killed while trying. Jess and Booth go on the hunt together. The hunt turns deadly and difficult, but Jess is never one to let that get in his way.

Jess has finally decided to take a long-needed break from the bounty hunting business. After leaving Kilgore, Kansas, and splitting off from the aging bounty hunter, John Booth, he goes to his house on the lake in Stratton, Texas. He plans to stay, relax, fish and visit with friends. His break is quickly cut short when Frank Reedy gets shot and is in grave condition. After only one day of relaxation, he finds himself hunting for the six men responsible for Reedy being shot. He takes John Bodine and Ace Yardley on the hunt with him. The six outlaws split up in pairs, each going in different directions, making Jess’s job of hunting them down difficult. But almost killing his good friend, Frank Reedy, was a mistake of proportions that the six killers would never realize…until Jess finds them and dispenses his own personal style of justice.

Jess finally gets to relax in Stratton, Texas, for a week of fishing, visiting and enjoying his house on the lake. His rest comes to an abrupt end when he finds out that a professional hired gun by the name of Len Bowden is in Stratton, asking about him. Jess confronts the gun handler, but after killing him, he finds a map of his hometown of Black Creek, Kansas, in Bowden’s pocket. Jess’s name is printed on the map next to the town. That causes him to be suspicious and he starts heading to Black Creek to find out what it might mean. Clay Morgan is living on the lake in Black Creek. When he finds out that a killer by the name of Glen Erlander in in town asking questions about Jess, he confronts Erlander and kills him. Morgan finds a map identical to the one Jess found on Bowden. Jess hears this news and starts to put things together. He heads straight to Black Creek and discovers that he has even more killers coming to find him, but he doesn’t know who they are or when they will arrive.

Jess is on the hunt for Kirk Shepperd after crossing back into Texas from his hometown of Black Creek, Kansas. He runs into some trouble with a rancher in Redding, Texas. In the middle of all the action, Shadow is wounded by one of the rancher’s hired guns. A confrontation ensues between Jess and the rancher and tensions run high in the town. Jess finds himself taking a side in the battle. It doesn’t take long before the rancher places a blood bounty on Jess’s head. Hired killers come from every direction, but Jess doesn’t plan on going down easily.

Jess’s next hunt leads him to the town of Buckner, Texas, where he meets a town marshal who is still grieving the loss of his wife. The marshal has turned to whiskey to drown his sorrows and finds himself in trouble, not able to perform his duties. Feeling sorry for the marshal, Jess helps him out, trying to capture the men who committed a jailbreak in town. Jess has to deal with the marshal’s addiction as well as try to make sure it doesn’t get them both killed. After a successful hunt, they return to Buckner, where Jess is faced with yet another man who wants him dead. The way the gunfight unfolds leaves Jess second-guessing his mission in life, which puts him in the most vulnerable position he’s ever been in.

Jess begins his hunt for the cagey and elusive killer, Rowdy Saltzman. As the hunt continues, he ends up riding closer to the border of New Mexico Territory. At the same time, the beautiful and deadly female bounty hunter, Wildcat, chases down the Whittaker gang. She ends up heading east toward the border of Texas. Their two paths cross again and they discover they’re both looking for some of the same outlaws. They team up once again to hunt down the rest of them together. The Whittaker gang has a plan, but will it succeed.

Jess and Wildcat go separate ways after hunting down the Whittaker gang. He begins his hunt for the slippery killer, Buck Benson. He locates him in the town of Starkey, Texas, but he’s going by the name of Harry Black. He’s now married and has a young son. The people of the town have even elected him as the mayor and, by all accounts, he is a very generous man. Jess finds himself in a quandary regarding this man who has no memory of his past life. Jess decides to hunt his next man, Rick Gale, but he receives an urgent message from the schoolmarm, Martha Heller. He drops everything and heads straight to Harrison, Texas. The marshal of the town ends up wounded badly and Jess pins on his United States Marshals badge to enforce the law there. Jess is in love with Martha, but knows that he can’t act on his feelings until he hangs up his guns and retires. That isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Jess is on the hunt for Lon Winter after leaving the town of Terrance, Texas. He rides into the town of Millbury, Texas, and accidentally runs into the Madsen brothers. One of them takes a hostage and bullets fly. He tracks Winter to Gilead, where he meets a down-and-out young bounty hunter by the name of Vernon Garrison. Jess agrees to help him out temporarily. They team up to hunt Winter, which takes them to the town of Eldon, Texas. While there, Jess receives a telegraph message from another bounty hunter he had worked with before, Ethan Stone. He has gotten himself locked up and charged with murder. Jess splits from Garrison to travel to Victorville to help Stone prove his innocence. Then, Jess receives a message from United States Marshal Frank Reedy, informing him of a wanted man who hadn’t been seen in a long time. Reedy has a clue and Jess follows it, only to be led down another dangerous path.

Jess is tracking the murderous killer, Oden Colling. He proves to be as smart as he is dangerous. Smart enough that Jess decides to break off the hunt and go after the next man on his list, Linton Fish. Meanwhile, Colling murders a woman in the town of Taylor, Texas. If that isn’t bad enough, Colling is telling everyone that he’s Jess Williams. The county sheriff puts out a warrant for Jess to be detained for questioning. United States Marshal Frank Reedy sends John Bodine to Taylor to attempt to resolve the issue, but it only angers the county sheriff, who then offers a reward for Jess’s detention. Jess knows he’s innocent of the charge, but some of the other gunslingers are just looking for an excuse to go after him.

After leaving Templeton, Texas, and John Bodine, Jess begins his hunt for Ricky Jewel. The hunt takes him to the town of Belding, Texas. After dealing with Jewel, he takes his body to the town of Salisbury, Texas, to turn in for the bounty. The town marshal of Salisbury, Vic Vinton, hands Jess two wanted posters on two of the men who have been dubbed, the Notorious Four, by the Northwest Mounted Police in Canada. After seeing the list of horrific crimes the four have committed, and knowing that they’ve fled across the border into the states, Jess is determined to hunt them all down and make them pay. Two things stand in his way. The long enduring hunt for the Notorious Four, and the many enemies Jess has made over the years. Jess, however, is not one to let that get in his way as he mows down his enemies in his hunt for the Notorious Four.

Jess is on the hunt for Cal Monett, a job that takes him to the town of Twin Rivers, Texas. He meets a young boy there who is homeless, broke and stealing to survive. Jess misses Monett, who had left town before he arrived, so he continues the hunt. This takes him to the nearby town of Moccasin, where he runs afoul of a rich rancher, Burt Orwell, who has just taken on Monett as one of his hired guns. After Jess kills Monett in front of Orwell, the rancher offers Jess a job, which he refuses, alienating Orwell even more. Three of the hired guns swear an oath to kill Jess for killing Monett. However, in a twist of events, these men and one more hired gun rob the rancher of twenty-four thousand dollars at night, leaving him with an empty safe and only one hired gun left on his payroll. Orwell offers Jess a substantial reward to hunt down the four men and get his money back. Jess takes the job and things turn deadly. Three of the men who swore an oath to hunt Jess down and kill him have now become the hunted instead. Thankfully, Jess has some help from an old friend, the huge timber wolf, Shadow.

Jess leaves Twin Rivers and heads to Prudence, Texas. The man he’s hunting, Eric Sheehan, has been seen in the area. When Jess arrives, he discovers that Sheehan murdered a young girl the night before and immediately left town. He finds the town marshal to be less than cooperative. The marshal wants to put a posse together and bring Sheehan back to Prudence to be hung in front of the parents of the young girl. He threatens to lock Jess up in his jail if he continues the hunt for Sheehan. After meeting the girl’s mother and seeing the girl’s body at the undertaker, Jess agrees to hunt Sheehan down and bring him back alive for a hanging. After the hanging, Jess goes on the hunt for Arnie McGrath, but runs into a young man named John Smith, who is looking for McGrath and two other men who murdered his parents years earlier. Smith reminds Jess of himself when he was young. He decides to ride with Smith to go after the men responsible. Jess finds the young John Smith to be remarkably talented at hunting and killing men. The two work together to find all three of the men who murdered Smith’s parents. Guns blaze, bullets fly and blood flows as the two hunt down killers together, forming a friendship that will last forever.

After splitting up from the young bounty hunter, John Smith, Jess is on the hunt for Malcomb Ruel, which takes him to Muncie, Texas. While in Muncie, he discovers that since passing through the town of Kearny they hired a marshal, but he was gunned down hours after he took the job. He then hunts the two men who killed the marshal and returns to Kearny to let them know the men responsible have paid the price. While there, he receives a request from United States Marshal Frank Reedy, telling him to meet him and John Bodine in the town of Calcutta, where five men have robbed the bank, killed two deputies and wounded the marshal, an old friend of both Bodine and Reedy. While in Calcutta, Wildcat shows up looking for the elusive killer, Noah Cain. Jess promises to help Wildcat catch Cain if she helps them chase down the five robbers. Jess, Reedy, Bodine and Wildcat team up together, and they hunt down the robbers. With these four on your trail, your odds of escaping aren’t good. The hunt begins. Lead flies and men die, but will justice be done in the end?

Jess leaves Calcutta and heads to the town of Menard on the hunt for Derik Bartholin. While there, he runs into two rather strange-acting men. Feeling confident that they robbed the bank in the town of Tecumseh, he follows them out of town and arrests them. After Jess brings them to Menard and locks them up, a sharp attorney gets the charges dropped. Jess is stung by the law he swears to uphold. Frustrated, he heads back out to hunt for Bartholin. He returns to Menard and finds two sisters, Betty and Susan Arnold, badly beaten by Susan’s husband, Mack Burden. He promises to hunt down Burden and bring him to justice. Then, he gets an assignment from United States Marshal Frank Reedy. He is to find two escapees who were being transported to the Huntsville State Penitentiary and deliver them to the nearest jail…alive. Along the way, he runs into another professional bounty hunter who is after the same two escapees. Jess is concerned that he’ll end up hauling Burden to Menard alive at the same time that he hauls the two escapees to jail. The idea of tending not just one, but three criminals stretches his patience to the limit.

Jess leaves the Arnold sisters behind in Menard and travels to Ashland, Texas, in search of Theo Hinkle. Then his hunt takes him to Richmond, Texas, where he meets a rancher by the name of Gene Harvey, along with his promiscuous wife, Emily. While on the hunt for yet another man, he learns that Emily has been kidnapped by three men, one of whom he knows. He agrees to track down the kidnappers and rescue Emily, but the job isn’t easy. He gives one of his wanted posters to Audie Dunlap, another bounty hunter who wanted to go after Emily. Dunlap gets himself killed and Jess feels a little responsible. He makes a difficult decision that might put Emily’s life at risk.

Jess is hunting the dangerous killer, Murry Lander, which takes him to Hillsboro, Texas. When he arrives, he discovers that two men have just gunned down the town mayor. He tracks the two killers to the town of Mason and discovers that Lander has also been there.Meanwhile, another bounty hunter shows up looking for Lander. A young girl named Sissy arrives on the stagecoach. Jess finds himself saddled with her and her quest to find her brother. If that isn’t enough to deal with, he ends up helping another woman, Marybeth, who has been held against her will for years. He feels obligated to help Sissy find her brother and help Marybeth find a new life, but there’s a chance he might have to kill Sissy’s brother when he finds him.

Jess leaves Hartfield, Texas, on the hunt for Whitey Mugler. After dispatching him to his grave, he finds himself in Campbell, Texas. While there, he sees two Texas Rangers transporting a vicious murderer named Arnie Boseman to his hanging in Austin, Texas. They leave Campbell and Jess follows the same trail the Rangers were on with their prisoner. He finds the camp they used. The two Rangers have been murdered. Jess begins his chase for the killer, Arnie Boseman, but the hunt proves difficult. After missing him several times, with Boseman leaving a trail of bodies in his wake, Jess receives an urgent message from his half-sister, Beth Sloan, in Woodward, Texas. He breaks off his hunt for Boseman and heads directly to Woodward and his secret sister, Beth.

After leaving the town of Woodward, Texas, and his secret sister, Beth Sloan, Jess is back on the hunt for Arnie Boseman, who has continued to escape his grasp. His hunt takes him to Webster, Texas, but he misses Boseman once more, and the killer has resumed his killing spree yet again. While in Webster, the Texas Ranger whose wife was Arnie Boseman’s first kill shows up in town. He gives Jess no choice but to let him join the hunt. The Ranger, Terrance Whittle, is so grief-stricken that he becomes erratic, putting both their lives in danger. Jess has to continue the hunt for Boseman, and at the same time keep the Ranger from doing something he’ll regret later. After finally sending Arnie Boseman to his grave, Jess receives a message from United States Marshal Frank Reedy. John Bodine was expected back in Stratton after helping Jess in Woodward but never showed up. Jess drops everything he’s doing and follows his back trail. He finds Bodine, who had been ambushed and left for dead but now John can’t remember anything. Jess hunts for the men he thinks are responsible with the help of the wolf named Shadow.

Jess is on the hunt for August Wesson, but before he finally tracks him down, Wesson hangs a man. Even worse, he does it in front of his wife, Mindy, and her two young children, Roger Junior and Betsie.After meeting Mindy and her two children, Jess continues his hunt for the killer, more determined than ever to bring Wesson to justice.A bounty hunter new to the trade, Chakits Krulsawat, shows up at Mindy’s cabin, also looking for Wesson. Krulsawat is in the business for the money, wanting to become rich and retire early, but Jess keeps getting in his way, frustrating the new man in the business.Chakits finally brings in a high-bounty target, alive, to stand trial. But then things go south and the new bounty hunter is faced with a tough decision.Alive…or dead?

Jess is on the hunt for the murderous Theo Connor. He leaves Wooster, Texas, and heads to Henryville, where Connor was last seen. Along the way, Jess runs into the infamous gunslinger, Cheyenne. When Jess arrives in Henryville, Connor is not there, but Cheyenne is. When Jess checks in at the telegraph office, he sees a threatening message regarding Cheyenne from Slim Cordell, a ruthless killer who has never yet been caught. It seems Cordell wants Cheyenne dead. Jess convinces Cheyenne to ride with him until they can find out where Cordell and his gang of thugs are. He finally catches up to Connor in the town of Ruben and Jess kills him. Before it’s over though, six other outlaws lie dead at the hands of Jess and Cheyenne. The twosome head to Barstow next, where one of Cordell’s men attempts to kill Cheyenne from a distance. Jess, not one to run, sets up an ambush for Cordell and his men. He ends up killing one of them, turning the tables on Cordell and his gang. But Cordell is not one to give up easily. He wants Cheyenne dead more than he wants to live, which makes him a very dangerous man.

Jess leaves Bend, Texas, to head to Gardner, where a gang of outlaws has been terrorizing the town. The gunslinger and gambler, Cheyenne, offers his help to return a huge favor.John Bodine gets called into service and is sent to Gardner, Texas, to assist Jess. He arrives first and is captured and locked up in the town jail.When Jess arrives, he rescues Bodine. Then, Jess, Bodine and Cheyenne confront the outlaws terrorizing Gardner. Lead flies and men die before the battle is over.After the deadly gunfight, Jess splits off from the other two, on the hunt for Ruben Straight. Along the way, he decides to pursue two more wanted killers…one by one.

After leaving Hardy, Jess travels to the town of Sand, Texas, on the hunt for Arthur Hamm. He doesn’t find Hamm in Sand, but Jess is confronted by a man he doesn’t know. The man accuses Jess of raping and killing his wife and challenges him to a gunfight in the middle of the street. After Jess kills the man, he discovers that the man’s Colt Peacemaker is empty. The only clue Jess has is that the name of the man’s wife was Beatrice. Armed with only the name and the manner in which Beatrice was murdered, he sets out to find out who the real killer is and make things right. Along the way, he runs into Cindy, a very interesting woman.

Jess leaves Opal, Texas, and travels to the town of Donger to find the next man on his hunt list, Dom Preston. In the process, Jess takes yet another bullet, which leads him to meet Dr. Sam Vaughn, a middle-aged woman with impressive skills as a doctor.His wound is minor and he leaves Donger to take Preston's body to the town of Waveland to turn him into the law there. He finds out about a stagecoach robbery by three outlaws. They kidnap Dr. Vaughn and force her into helping one of them who was wounded in the robbery.One of the men who were killed in the robbery, happened to be a very wealthy man. His wife, Lizzy Draper, hires Jess to hunt down the three men who murdered her husband.John Bodine is assigned to help Jess and the hunt becomes dangerous with Jess' enemies trying to catch the bounty and kill him in the process.But Jess isn't one to go down without a fight.

Jess leaves Donger, Texas, and his good friend, John Bodine, to hunt for the ruthless and vicious killer, George Meyer, who was last seen in the town of Chastain. While there, Jess sees a man bullying a young boy by the man of Johnny, but before Jess reaches them, the 150-pound timber wolf, Shadow, shows up out of nowhere to help. When Jess continues the hunt for Meyer, Shadow joins in and accompanies him. Jess wonders if Shadow is just along for the company…or if he knows something that Jess doesn’t. He soon discovers that to be the case, when he is asked to hunt down three ruthless killers.

Jess finds himself in Liberty, Texas, in a running gunfight between himself and the crazed killer, Sully Hurst. Hurst gets lucky and escapes on his horse. Jess has a bit more trouble in Liberty before leaving town and going after Hurst again. While searching for his next hunt, he arrives in Segundo, Texas, where he gets into a wild shootout in the saloon. While in Bream, Texas, he learns that Ansel Maclin has escaped from the state penitentiary, killing one of the prison guards in the process. He decides to hunt Maclin down, but he soon finds out that this quest will have to wait. He gets a message from the schoolmarm, Martha Heller, in Harrison. He drops everything and heads her way.

With a conflicted heart, Jess leaves Harrison and Martha Heller to begin his hunt for Herman Conway. The chase takes him to Lake Lillian, Texas, where he meets a young woman by the name of Bonnie, along with her young brother Fred. When Conway discovers that Jess is in Lake Lillian, he kidnaps Fred as a bargaining chip in case Jess is on his trail. Feeling somewhat responsible, Jess goes after Conway and finds him, but has to let him escape in order to get Fred back alive. After securing Fred’s release, Jess resumes the hunt for Conway. Along the way though, trouble seems to get in his way at every turn. Then he meets Sam Smith.