The Ranown Cycle Westerns

Ex-sheriff Ben Stride tracks the seven men who held up a Wells Fargo office and killed his wife. Stride is tormented by the fact that his own failure to keep his job was the reason his wife was working in the express office, so he is partly responsible for her death. Stride encounters a married couple heading west for California and helps them; along the way they are joined by two ne'er-do-wells, Masters and Clete, who know that Stride is after the express-office robbers. They plan to let Stride lead them to the bandits, then make away with the loot themselves. But they aren't the only ones carrying a secret.

Having lost his horse in a bet, Pat Brennan hitches a ride with a stagecoach carrying newlyweds, Willard and Doretta Mims. At the next station the coach and its passengers fall into the hands of a trio of outlaws headed by a man named Usher. When Usher learns that Doretta is the daughter of a rich copper-mine owner, he decides to hold her for ransom. Tension builds over the next 24 hours as Usher awaits a response to his demands and as a romantic attachment grows between Brennan and Doretta.

Bart Allison (Randolph Scott) arrives in Sundown planning to kill Tate Kimbrough (John Carroll). Three years earlier he believed Kimbrough was responsible for the death of his wife. He finds Kimbrough and warns him he is going to kill him but gets pinned down in the livery stable with his friend Sam (Noah Beery Jr) by Kimbrough's stooge Sheriff (Andrew Duggan) and his men. When Sam is shot in the back after being told he could leave safely, some of the townsmen change sides and disarm the Sheriff's men forcing him to face Allison alone. Taking care of the Sheriff, Allison injures his gun hand and must now face Kimbrough left-handed.

On his way home to West Texas, Tom Buchanan rides into the Californian border town of Agry, and into a feud between several members of the Agry family. In helping out a Mexican seeking revenge on one of them, Buchanan finds himself against the whole family.

A wanted murderer, Billy John (James Best), is captured by Ben Brigade (Randolph Scott), a bounty hunter, who intends to take him to Santa Cruz to be hanged. Brigade stops at a staging post, where he saves the manager's wife (Karen Steele) from an Indian attack, and enlists the help of two outlaws (Pernell Roberts, James Coburn) to continue his journey more safely. However, the Indian attacks persist, the outlaws plan to take Billy for themselves, tempted by the offer of amnesty for his captor, and Billy's brother Frank (Lee Van Cleef) is in hot pursuit to rescue him. But Brigade has plans of his own..

In 1864 Cavalry Captain John Hayes reluctantly follows orders to become the civilian boss of the Overland Stage Line, which keeps the flow of western gold to the Union and will help it win the Civil War. Headquarters for the stage line is a small Colorado town with southern sympathizers who will do anything they can to sabotage his mission. Resistance to his efforts is led by former friend and colleague Clay Putnam, who has taken advantage of Hayes' absence and married his former sweetheart.

Loner Cody trades with the Comanches to get a white woman released, a life he has fallen into ever since his own wife was kidnapped. He is joined on his way back to the woman's husband by an outlaw and his sidekicks. It turns out there is a large reward for the return of the woman, and with the Indians on the warpath and the outlaw being an old enemy of Cody's, things are set for several showdowns.