The Guns of Will Sonnett

- Season 1

(1967)

Jeff and Will encounter a man who lost an arm in a gunfight with Jim Sonnett.

With Will's gun arm injured, Jeff is forced into his first-ever gunfight against a master gunfighter (Charles Grodin, of all people) who uses every psychological trick in the book.

Arriving in a Mexican town, the Sonnetts find Jim's grave and a curiously reticent padre, and tangle with a bandito leader who may -- or may not -- have killed James. Features an exceptionally lively gunfight at the end.

Will stops by a town intending to visit his old friend Morgan. Turns out, he is the sheriff. He tells Will the town wants him and Jeff to move along as they are not wanted. But a cattle baron comes into town, intent on confronting Morgan.

Hearing Jim Sonnett is to be hanged, Will and Jeff hurry to a Western town. A man says he is Jim. Will disputes it but Jeff believes. The Sheriff fears they will try to break him out. The carnival atmosphere in the town unhinges Jeff.

The Sonnetts talk to a sheriff who knows Jim, hoping to learn where he is. The sheriff is unsure of their intentions so he doesn't tell them Jim is expected next day. But Jim encounters a challenger before he gets there and has to reroute.

A farmer provides Jeff, ill with fever, a bed while his wife tends. The Sonnett's don't know the farmer offered because Jim Sonnett killed their son in a shootout in the last year. The wife, sick with grief, thinks Jeff is the dead son.

The Sonnetts are accosted by four gunmen who claim to be friends of Jim's, saying they can take them to him. They agree to ride with them but soon realize they are being used as bait to draw Jim out of hiding for an ambush at Devil's Fork.

When Will and Jeff land in jail, a pretty girl puts up the bail and asks them to stay.

The Sonnetts tend to an injured man wanted for bank robbery. They agree to turn him in and send bounty money to his poor family. But his former gang pose as lawmen to do the same minus the altruism and hold a murderous grudge against Will.

A dying bank robber names Jim Sonnett as his accomplice in a bank robbery where the clerk was shot dead. The sheriff demands a posse's help. Using aliases, Will and Jeff join the posse ponied by the bank owner with $500 reward and liquor.

Near broke, Will enters Jeff in a shooting contest where a prize bull is at stake put up by a local cattle baron who keeps local breeders dependent. Tensions escalate as the Sonnett's hear of how they treated Jim on an earlier visit.

Will and Jeff are startled to be introduced to Mrs. Jim Sonnett who is being tormented by a local ruffian. Jeff believes her story but Will has doubts. When she appeals for protection their disagreement mushrooms towards a falling out.

Jeff is being held by the sons of a man that was killed by Jim Sonnett, demanding Will bring him for Jeff's release. The local town is unwilling to help so Will enlists a broken down former gunslinger and Will begins his rehabilitation.

In the town of Paradise, Will reconnects with an old friend who still owns a brothel. She is looked down upon by the very men of the town who have unpaid accounts. Rather than have them pay up, she just asks them to help build a church.

Will and Jeff travel to Hangtown to speak with a doctor that treated Jim but the doctor is out of town. They visit the doctor's wife at their home but she and the hired hand have sinister plans for them and a treacherous secret concealed.

When Will is shot in a bank robbery he and Jeff stumble into the middle of, Jeff insists on joining the local sheriff in pursuing the robbers. While Will convalesces, he learns the sheriff's wife knows a shocking truth about the robbery.

The Sonnett's meet a small-time hustler posing as Will to mooch meals and drinks with trick shooting. When confronted, he admits he began the scam after helping Jim when he was shot. A local gunslinger challenges the poser to a gunfight.

Jeff and Will arrive in a town and hear that Jim Sonnett will soon hang there. Jeff visits him in jail, giving him his first glimpse of his dad. Jim is accused of robbing and murdering a rancher. Will finds a hole in the prosecution case.

The Sonnett's travel to the remote area of Will's younger days. They find a mother bedfast with tick fever, an old flame of Will's with troubles married to an outlaw who's away. They nurse the woman well and tend to her children.

Accused of a murder he didn't commit, Jeff is arrested and faces hanging. The local lawyer is afraid to defend Jeff because most of the town owes the murdered man a lot of money. Will has to either defend Jeff or find someone who can.

Will and Jeff befriend a saloon girl who is a single mother unable to both care for her baby and please her cruel taskmaster employer. Her father is to arrive but she's afraid because she married her faithless husband against his wishes.

Will awaits the arrival of Jeff as they are to reunite in a deserted town. An unidentified gunman starts shooting at Will and Will is knocked senseless when grazed by a bullet. Will then experiences waking dreams of accusers from his past.

Visiting a farmhouse where a wounded James Sonnett stayed, Jeff is shocked when the illegitimate son of the daughter seems to be his half-brother, ostracized by the girl's father because of her sin and James leaving. Plot twist at the end.

South Dakota, 1890: Will meets up with an old friend, a Sioux chief planning to join the doomed Ghost Dance uprising. When Will schemes to foil a gunrunner's sale of rifles to the tribesmen, the peddler and a crooked sheriff retaliate.

An old friend of Will's is posing as a wealthy man to land a woman and asks for Will's help. However, a couple of disreputable, former business partners aim to demand their share of Charlie's apparent newfound wealth.