A storm forced Blake Durant to seek shelter in a broken-down roadhouse. That was where he first met the mysterious gunman-gambler called Parrant. And it was also the moment Blake's life turned upside-down ... because Parrant turned out to be trouble all the way.The next time they met, it was through a curtain of gunsmoke. Men died during that confrontation, and Blake found himself being hunted by a town marshal and a vicious prison guard, both of whom wanted to see him swing from a gallows. In order to prove his innocence, Blake had to make his way back to the roadhouse to find someone to vouch for him – but all he found when he got there were more bodies. All at once he could feel that noose growing ever tighter around his throat ...

When the Lamont gang started throwing lead at Blake Durant, he fought back as best he could ... and then lit out fast. But the Lamont boys kept after him.Why? He didn't know them, and as far as he was aware, they didn't know him, either. So why were they so determined to see him dead?It was a puzzle that slowly began to make sense when he hit the nearest town. Something rotten was going on beneath the seemingly tranquil surface of this sleepy little community, and from the moment he arrived, Blake wasn't sure just who he could trust. Sheriff Wicker was a scared man trying to look brave. His son hero-worshipped him and wanted to prove himself as a deputy. Josh Tonkin ran a saloon and seemed to have the town's best interests at heart. Or did he? And finally there was the beautiful widow, Millie Borden, who wanted only peace ... and to snare a new man for herself.When all hell finally broke lose, Blake's only ally turned out to be an outlaw who'd be just as happy...

It all started with the discovery of three dead men, each of whom had been shot from ambush. Blake Durant did the decent thing and buried them, and that should have been the end of it. But then he met up with Ben Adamson, discovered that the men had been working for him, and decided to help the old-timer drive his cattle into the next town down the trail.That was when all hell broke loose. There was an attempt to steal the cattle, and in the process Durant was accused of a cold-blooded killing and sentenced to hang.Loyal to the end, Ben Anderson fought tooth and nail to save him from the trumped-up charge ... but that only led to even more problems, including a terrifying manhunt and, finally, an audacious plan to get even with the bad men who ruled Outcast County.

Trouble was brewing between the cattlemen and the railroaders, and though Blake Durant wanted no part in it, Fate had other ideas. For one thing, Durant's horse had been stolen from him, and he wasn't about to leave town until he had Sundown back. For another, the railroaders had taken his guns when they took him prisoner.Now he was unarmed and on the run for a murder he didn't commit. The only way to prove his innocence, and stop a range-war, was to find the real killer, and the surprising reason behind his actions.But with the entire countryside against him, that was going to be easier said that done. He could stay and do what he could to clear himself, or he could run.For Blake Durant, there was no other option ... no middle trail he could take!

Ambrose Warlow had taken over the town. Now he figured to take over the entire territory!He might just do it, too, with gunfighters like Ru Meiklen and Ed Kingsley on his payroll.The town needed someone faster to fight their battle. But more than that, an owlhoot named Cash Avener needed a fast gun to take out the competition so that he could take over himself ... and when Blake Durant fell right into his lap, the stage was set for a showdown.Railroaded into taking part in a massacre he wanted no part of, Blake could only bide his time until the chance came to escape his captor and settle the account once and for all. But what chance did one man stand against an army of killers? And how far could he trust the townsfolk to back him?

Drifter Blake Durant was arrested and thrown into the Sunfish Creek jail on a simple case of mistaken identity. The town was expecting a visit from outlaw Tom Moran, who'd sworn to get revenge on its lawmen, and Deputy Billy Owen suspected that Blake was part of Moran's gang, sent out ahead of the main gang to scout the lay of the land.Then everything became even more complicated when some genuine owlhoots broke jail and committed a cold-blooded murder. A manhunt followed, as did the unexpected appearance of Moran's beautiful young daughter, Lisa. And Blake found himself on the trail of the outlaws ... because the only way to clear himself of the murder was to bring back the guilty parties, either in their saddles ... or across them.

When they came charging at him with guns blazing, Blake Durant had no choice but to kill the two young men he'd never seen before. When the gun smoke cleared, he took the bodies in to nearby Lodge Creek, figuring to report what had happened and find out why they'd been so set on killing him.Instead, Blake found himself accused of murder and quickly thrown into jail.The townsfolk reckoned he was part of an outlaw gang that had raided the town a few days earlier, and they wasted no time in sentencing him to hang.Help came from an unlikely source ... and as the town burned around him, Blake fled with a strange assortment of companions—the town mayor, whose son had been one of the men Blake had shot down, the mayor's daughter Jennifer, whose whole life had been overshadowed by her bullying father, a hapless bank manager who wasn't sure he could find enough backbone to fight the outlaws when they came in pursuit ... and the town marshal, who had sworn to make...

When Blake Durant rode into the town of Covey, he also rode straight into a hornet's nest of trouble—the worst storm in living memory, that left great swathes of land underwater ... ill-feeling between two ranchers that resulted in one being arrested for the murder of the other ... a lynch-mob that wouldn't be satisfied until they had a body dangling from the end of a rope ... and a bank robbery that ended in death.The town was a powder keg waiting to explode, and it seemed that Blake's arrival was just the spark needed to set it off. With no real choice in the matter, the man they called The Loner had to see it through, right to the final showdown in a deserted saloon at night, when the man he had hunted for so long turned the tables and came hunting for him ...

Blake Durant was one of the crew driving Jay Hurwood's cattle to the railhead at Gabriel. The trail had been hard, but nothing more than he'd expected. Then two murders were committed, right out on the open prairie ... and suddenly everyone became a suspect.Because there hadn't been any love lost between Blake and Joe Sowarth, Joe's brother, Lanny, was convinced that Blake was the killer, and figured to even the score any way he could. But there was more going on around Hurwood's trail drive than anyone could imagine, and the only way Blake could clear his name was by finding the real killer ... and his sinister motive!