Episode Summary:
The episode is done as Steve's reminiscences at the graveside of his friend Johnny Wade.         Tenderfoot Steve meets Texan top hand Wade while jumping a train. In Medicine Bow they both go to work at the Walking Butte Ranch and Wade teaches Steve to shoot. The Walking Butte's new owner, Georgia Price, refuses to go along with the other ranchers in fencing off an area to be saved for winter feed, intending instead to triple her herd, use up the grass, make a pile of money and leave. Her foreman Spinner quits in protest and Georgia promotes Wade to foreman, largely because of his hatred for fences, but also because she desires him. When Ben Tully (Kelley) arrives from Texas with her first 5,000 extra cattle, she hires him and his men, anticipating range war, and has the men drift the herd into the area the ranchers are fencing off. Steve is caught in the barbed wire; when Wade learns of it, he goes crazy, declaring that he will kill Judge Garth. Steve decides he's on the wrong side and quits the Walking Butte; Wade tells him never to get in front of him again without a gun. Steve heads to town, where Tully and his men goad him into a fight. Steve wins, but the Texans play dirty, two men roping him while Tully beats him up. This convinces Steve to go to work for Garth. The Virginian comes back from wherever he's been the first hour of the show. While he's out building fence, Tully's group tries to ambush him; only Tully survives. Tully informs Wade that Steve is riding with Garth. Georgia, Wade, Tully et al. stampede their herd into the fenceline, but the Shiloh boys manage to turn the herd. (In the shooting and stampede, it looks like Tully may have gone down under the hooves, but it's hard to tell.) Wade confronts Steve and draws on him. Both fire and both are hit, Wade fatally. Georgia rides up to find Wade dead, and tells the ranchers that the Walking Butte is for sale.

Notes:
Not a lot for Kelley to do in this one but be plain mean. Brian Keith, however, absolutely shines in his role.

Sources: viewing; Brooks & Marsh; Lentz (1997)

Episode Summary:
Arapaho Diamo holes up in a camp with his wife, who is about to have their baby. Ben, one of Sherman’s ranch hands, accuses them of being responsible for a recent rash of thefts, pulls a gun, and in the ensuing fight Diamo kills him. Diamo’s father Tah-sa sends the couple on and stays to take the blame. Diamo and wife take shelter in Sherman’s barn and are found by Mike and taken in by Daisy, who sends Diamo to town for the doctor. Ben’s brothers Rafe and Jack (Kelley) come to shoot Tah-sa but instead lose a fistfight with Sherman and Sheriff Corey. Diamo discovers his father in jail. Next day, Ben and Rafe rile up a lynch mob, but Sherman has found a knife out at the scene, supporting his surmise that the old Indian is protecting someone else. The mob disperses. Sherman goes home, finds Diamo with an empty knife sheath, accuses him and they go off on a merry horse-chase -- which Sherman wins. After the baby is born, Sherman takes Diamo to jail. Meanwhile, back at Rafe and Jack’s livery stable, we learn that they are the thieves, and now plan to get away with everything by blaming it all on the Arapahos moving through the area to the reservation. Jack is all for running away and reluctant to do any killing, but Rafe dismisses his concerns and slips a gun to the Indians, planning to kill them -- and hopefully Sherman and the sheriff (whom Jack has overheard discussing their suspicions of the brothers) -- when they try to escape. Diamo uses the gun on the sheriff, but Sherman comes in with proof that the brothers are the thieves, and they lay a trap for them. Rafe is killed in the shootout; Jack surrenders.

Notes:
Pretty standard western fare here; Kelley plays Jack’s weak-willed ambivalence nicely.

Sources: viewing; Brooks & Marsh; Lentz (1997);

Episode Summary:
Captain Benedict is wounded and sent to the evacuation hospital in Naples. Conley visits and points out that the men have begun to view him as a kind of good luck charm. Benedict worries that if they are crediting him with their luck and low casualties so far, they will also blame him when that luck changes. Major McGowan, the psychiatrist, is sent to evaluate him for his fitness to return to combat duty. Conley introduces him to Captain Meg Thorpe, with the American Military Government, who falls in love with him and takes steps to get him to transfer to the AMG to work on rebuilding the town of San Felipo, where he is seen as a hero. McGowan says he will approve it as medically advisable. Meg's CO, Colonel Davenport (Kelley) was in a combat unit himself before transferring to AMG and seems ambivalent; he advises Benedict to make sure he's not leaving anything behind - like a part of himself. Benedict takes a jeep and visits his company, telling them about the transfer. When he gets there, he discovers that the squadron led by his protege Corporal Lefty Morgan was trapped in a farmhouse under heavy fire and only two men were known to have survived. Back at AMG, Lefty appears, having dragged himself, wounded, for two days to get to Benedict and accuse him of running out on the men. Lefty dies and Jim goes back to his company, explaining to Meg that he had been afraid to go back because it would be accepting what the men were saying - that he was responsible for their luck, but he's gotten over that now, and can go back. Conley welcomes him back to the front.

Notes:
A very minor role for Kelley with not much interesting to do but look decorative in uniform.

Sources: viewing; Brooks & Marsh; EPGuides website

Episode Summary:
J.D. was once an outlaw riding with Jake Volet, who was a father figure to him -- and, apparently to the rest of the gang. Volet, now 60, is released from prison and J.D. brings him a horse. Volet goes to live with his daughter Hardi and her husband Glen Masters, and the rest of the old gang gather to him there. This in-gathering is nicely done: we see Jake at target practice, alone and lousy but gradually getting better as he is joined first by Martin Volet (Kelley) and then the others, one by one. (Martin and Jake's relationship is unclear -- Martin calls Jake “Uncle Jake” but Jake calls Martin his “own son.”) J.D. visits and tries to dissuade Jake from pulling a job. He has an altercation with cousin Martin, who is eager to get a chance to finish a long-interrupted fight with him. Volet is ill, and dreams of pulling one last perfect job in glory. J.D.’s loyalties are torn; Hardi gets him to promise to assist, by telling him that Jake will be dead before the job is done. This turns out to be a lie – a ruse Hardi uses to obtain J.D.’s word, believing that they’ll all be killed if he doesn’t join them. On one visit, Martin and J.D. have their fight, Martin being soundly beaten - then shot in the shoulder by Jake when he tries to take an axe to J.D. Meanwhile, the army puts Frank in charge of their payroll. Frank sets a trap for Jake, but Jake outwits them, ignoring the bait of the wagon and getting the real gold from the bank. J.D. heads for the Masters ranch, followed by the other deputies. In the resulting shootout all of the gang are killed but Jake; J.D. goes after him. They wing each other, neither willing to kill. Finally J.D. kills Jake, who was lying in wait for him.

Notes:
A basic, vehement “mean heavy” role for Kelley; he gets to do a few nice gun fillips and fights.
Dead Again: A deputy rides his horse right into the house to shoot Martin in the back, sending him falling dead through the window.

Sources: viewing; Brooks & Marsh; Lentz (1997)

Episode Summary:
It's 1863 in Aurora, Nevada. Clint Rodgers (Kelley) has been sent home after being wounded in the Civil War (though he seems pretty fit!). At a funeral for the husband of his one-time sweetheart Ann, he learns that the town has been taken over by Daly and his gang. They are shooting citizens at will (27 in the last 3 months); the townspeople are too divided by their war sympathies to back up the sheriff or go after the baddies. Clint settles in at the stage stop with Billy Johnson, who had taken him in as an orphaned child. Two of Daly's men rob the stage; Clint pursues them and kills Buckley. Billy urges Clint to run and hide, but Clint insists on taking the body to the sheriff. Billy sends Ann to convince Clint to leave town. When they return to the stage stop, Daly has been there first and killed both Billy and his fancy horse. At Billy's funeral, Clint berates the townsmen for their bickering inaction and swears to put Daly in the ground himself. He goes to the undertaker to order up a coffin "as tall as a coward," takes it to the saloon, pulls a gun on Daly and orders him to get in the box. The townspeople finally back him up, Clint knocks Daly into the coffin, and the vigilantes hang the three gunslingers.

Notes:
Well, it's refreshing to see Kelley play a good guy for a change, though the premise of the show - that vigilantes are a good thing - is rather alarming. Nice horse.

Sources: viewing; Brooks & Marsh; Lentz (1997)