Black Fury #45

When young Danny Keller falls under the influence of the smooth-talking gunslinger Duke Fain, he's drawn toward a life of crime and violence—mirroring the dangerous path Black Fury observes in his own herd, where a flashy spotted stallion threatens to corrupt the young horses with his vicious ways. As Duke pushes Danny toward an outlaw scheme, Black Fury must fight for his leadership, and Danny must reckon with what kind of man he's choosing to become. This frontier tale weaves the wild stallion's struggle with a young man's test of character, exploring how easily the impressionable can be led astray by those who promise power through cruelty.

When Black Fury brings his herd to the lush Cheyenne hunting grounds, he becomes the unwitting prize in a contest: two warriors—the wealthy, ruthless Running Wolf and the poor but clever Eagle Feather—compete to capture the wild stallion, with the hand of the chief's daughter, White Flower, as the reward. As the hunters close in, Black Fury's fate and the tribe's future hang in the balance, decided not by gold or brute force alone, but by cunning, heart, and the stallion's own wild nature.

When Lex Garvin is hired at the Splitrock Ranch against his foreman's wishes, Rike Ruston sets out to destroy him—sabotaging his saddle and then driving him out of town with lies and intimidation. Broken and friendless, Garvin takes work as a swamper and befriends a stray dog, but when Ruston's men push him too far, he's forced to stand up for himself and reclaim what's rightfully his. In this gritty 1963 western tale, a drifter discovers that courage isn't something you lose forever—it just takes the right moment to find it again.

When a giant puma threatens a young boy in the hills, Black Fury—the wild stallion that rancher Clyde Begley has sworn to hunt down and kill—intervenes to save the child's life at great cost. Grateful and unable to abandon their rescuer, the boy and his father devise a clever scheme to protect the wounded stallion from Begley's guns: they disguise Black Fury as an Appaloosa, counting on the dye and bleach to keep the king of wild horses hidden in plain sight while he recovers.