The Outcasts

- Season 1

(1968)

Ex-Confederate white man joins up with a freed slave ex-Union officer to become bounty hunters in the years following the Civil War.

Ambushed outside of town, when Jemal and Corey kill their ambusher and turn him in, they are thrown in jail on the basis of an old wanted poster with Jemal's picture on it.

Jemal is framed for murder in a town close to the desert. Corey breaks him out of jail before a lynch mob can hang him. They are pursued into the desert by a fanatical sheriff who has secrets of his own. Things get sticky when Earl's horse goes lame and he gets bit by a rattlesnake. And what secret is the sheriff hiding? And how will that help Jemal?

Jamal tricks Corey into going over the border into Mexico to hunt his latest bounty. As usual, things go awry and they end up meeting up with federales and a firing squad.

Corey wins a black woman in a poker game and gives her to Jemal as a Christmas present. The next morning, the woman runs off with Corey's winnings, back to the southern colonel and his wife to continue the con. But unexpectedly, she and Jemal fall in love and make plans to marry.

Corey and Jamal are hired by a rancher and his teenage son to protect their property. An assortment of ranch hands, some helpful, some not, plus the son, all present challenges for Corey and Jamal.

Jemal is shanghaied and put in a prison wagon by Sgt Taggert who assumes his identity and robs a stagecoach. Corey goes to search for Jemal, with a sheriff and his men in pursuit, assuming him complicit in the crime.

On a stormy night, Corey and Jamal reach their destination, a small farm owned by an old friend. But the farm has been taken over by a band of southern sympathizers who want to recruit Corey to be their leader, to restore the Old South to its glory. Jamal sees the body of their friend in the barn, but is almost immediately shot. An army general and his family also seek shelter from the rain. What the general carries in his wagon surprises Corey, helping him to decide to join the gang, but only temporarily.

Jemal is made sheriff of a town when the current sheriff, his old friend, plus another man are killed. Corey is made deputy. But townspeople are not helpful in keeping the peace. A woman can give an alibi to the man accused, but is intimidated by the man running the town behind the scenes.

Corey overhears a whispered conversation in a bath house that leads him to believe "The Butcher of Bennington" is in town. Twelve people died when they refused to hand over a confederate soldier during the war, who was Corey. The man was being blackmailed by a soldier. Later, the soldier, who was fatally stabbed, collapses in Corey's arms. The owner of the bath house supposedly hangs himself. Corey investigates and eliminates suspects. The main suspect has a paralyzed arm and is a friend of Jamal's.

While on their way to a job offer, Earl and Jemal save a runaway Conestoga wagon. Inside the wagon are a teenage boy, a young girl and their dying mother. The mother soon dies and Earl and Jemal help the kids bury her. They bring the kids with them to the nearest stage coach station which is 22 miles away. While on their way, they are followed by two men who turn out to be bounty hunters after the children's father. The father is an escaped convict who shows up at the station to take his kids to Mexico with him. The bounty hunters show up soon after, however, and ...

Crooked lawmen and a judge railroad and shanghai Jamal to work a gold mine. Corey spots Jamal's horse being ridden by the sheriff. He realizes the trick, and gets himself hired as a guard, so he can break Jamal out. As a former slave, Jamal has problems with leg irons. As a slave, he had never worn them before.

When Jamal tries to help his Indian blood brother get his land back from swindlers, he has to face shifting ideas of identity, both his and his friend's. What makes a man who he is? How does he discover the answer?

Jamal and Earl seek a man who has changed his name. He seems to be respectable and is a candidate for mayor, very well-to-do and respectfully married. But Earl learns the wife is his former love, and they rekindle their romance.

While taking their prisoner to justice, Corey and Jemal are recruited to cross the desert with explosive nitroglycerin to help rescue miners trapped in a cave.

Earl and Jamal capture a black man wanted for murder. The man says he'll never get a fair trial because he's black. A wealthy rancher holds great influence over townspeople. It was his foreman who was killed, and he is convinced the black man did it. Another bounty hunter shows up and begins work for the rancher. Earl knows the sheriff and says he's an honest man. The black man has an alibi, but the rancher's influence could get the farmer/alibi to change his mind.

Bounty hunter Earl Corey and his partner, Jemal David, return to a place where an incident occurred that has devastated Corey's life: he accidentally killed an innocent young woman. After they arrive there, the two encounter the dead girl's strange mother.

Corey encounters an old slave of his family's, now free. Jemal believes there's more to the old ex-slave than meets the eye, in a town full of bounty hunters, miners, and lowlifes. The key may lie in letting go of old ideas and embracing new ones.

Corey and Jamal take on a wagonload (seven) prisoners. Adventures, escape attempts, a wedding, and attempted murder plague them as one-on-one the prisoners are either let go or escape, until only one prisoner is delivered. But a surprise awaits them at trail's end.

Stan Sutton tries to implicate Earl in a bank robbery. A saloon girl also figures into putting Corey in a very uncomfortable position. It seems the only thing to do is bust Sutton out of jail.

Caught in a heavy thunderstorm, Earl and Jamal seek shelter in a small cave. But they soon discover it's an Indian burial cave. They battle superstition, each other, and outside Indians who seem to be guarding the sanctity of the cave. Attempts are made to smoke them out, but after one skirmish, the night becomes even darker for one of them, blinded by a bullet graze.

Corey and Jamal ride into a nearly deserted town to collect a bounty, only to find the remaining assorted characters hostile, believing they are parr of an outlaw gang bent in destroying the town and killing anyone found there. It's either help or stay in jail,and as their horses were stolen...

Corey and Jemal pursue a $200 bounty to capture a fanatic known as the "black devil" who is terrorizing an Indian tribe by stalking men, women and children.

Corey and David are escorting a wealthy family from Virginia to their new home in the West. On the way Corey unwittingly gets involved in the family's life, becoming the father's confidant, the son's enemy and the unwilling rival of the daughter's fiancé.

Thrown together after an acrimonious separation, which left Corey scarred by Jamal's Kiowa brothers, the bounty hunters escort a white prisoner who killed many Apache, including a squaw. But they're being followed by both Indian and whites. The Indians want revenge. His white confederates want to free him to pursue a gold mine. Corey wants revenge. They once again fight it out.

Just as Corey and Jamal arrive in town they help out two Native Americans who are being beaten by some roughnecks. This leads them to guarding the wagon shipments from the tribe's lucrative silver mine, much to the chagrin of the local sheriff. It would turn out to be The Outcasts final episode.