The Guns of Will Sonnett

- Season 2

(1968)

James Sonnett finally learns that his father and son are trying to track him down -- but the way he learns is from a vengeful young punk who's ploying Will and Jeff for information -- and posing as Jeff.

The Sonnets are railroaded on trumped-up charges in a small town where they heard Jim stayed 4 days. Rather than let them pay a fine, the judge sentences them to work the local railroad tunnel for 30 days. On the job, things become grim.

The Sonnett's encounter a bounty hunter team who are pursuing Jim Sonnett and other fugitives. Will challenges their ruthless tactics and use of Bible scriptures to justify them and later discovers they have crossed the line.

Will attempts to help a friend who's been terrorized by a maniac for accidentally causing the death of the other man's daughter.

The Sonnets arrive at the town of Willow where a saloon flunky loves to instigate gun fights. Having instigated one between Jim Sonnett and a local earlier, he's delighted when Will and Jeff arrive.

Will and Jeff arrive in town to find Jim Sonnett literally hanged in effigy. The widow of a back-shooting victim has coerced the town into building gallows in the town square that dangle a Jim scarecrow. Now any Sonnett is sufficient.

When Jeff and Will ride into a town run by unscrupulous marshals who rule over the townspeople, they become further incensed when they discover the marshals claim to have run Jim out of town. Jeff goes against his grandfather's advice and confronts the marshals on the main street in full view of the town. Will finally backs his grandson's play and they run the marshals out of town.

An old storekeeper friend of Will's is stubbornly unwilling to forgive the young farmer who stole from his store, even though the young man has served his time and needs to support his wife and child but can't get a job.

Three brothers believe Will and Jeff are in town to avenge James, whom one of the brothers thinks he killed in an ambush. Now that brother thinks the only way to prevent being killed is to ambush Will and Jeff as well.

Will and Jeff have a not-so-friendly hello to a bounty hunter in a small town. Jim Sonnett appears at the end in an unrelated (but chilling) segment.

Dave Henry rescues Will and Jeff from a trio of horse thieves. Henry appears totally without fear, and Jeff thinks of him as a kind of idol, but Henry's apparent fearlessness actually masks a terrible secret.

Will and Jeff try to find a home for a little girl named Hope, whose drunken father just died in a house fire. But finding a family willing to take her is not easy.

Will and Jeff meet a young man on the trail who is eager to join the army. But instead, an old hunter talks the young man into joining him slaughtering and skinning buffalo in excess numbers, which could lead to an Indian war.

Three outlaws, one posing as an Army major, talk Jeff into accompanying them to meet his father, but they actually have more sinister plans for both Jeff and James. Will teams with an old prospector to look for them.

With reason to believe James has been through the area, Will and Jeff both enter a town which has been taken over by an outlaw gang that has practically enslaved the residents.

A maniacal man avenging the death of his brother -- allegedly a murder by James Sonnett, though this is never proved -- will empty his gun through a hotel window just on the rumor that Jim Sonnett is on the other side. Though the hotel-shooting is the result of a cruel practical joke, the gunman still thinks he has a line on Jim's whereabouts through a saloon hostess who was recently Jim's girlfriend. When Will and Jeff arrive in the town, the sheriff and the hostess work separately to prevent a disastrous gunfight.

When Will and Jeff run right into the middle of a deadly cattle versus sheep feud which has enveloped a grazing town, James Sonnett, a hired gun for the sheep ranchers, runs right into a cattleman's hired gun who looks just like him (played by a different actor) -- and gets into a fatal gunfight.

Posing as his own killer, Jim Sonnett reports to the cattlemen who hired the killer in a cattlemen-sheepmen feud (he's working for the sheepmen, as are Will and Jeff), and meets Jeff face-to-face for the first time, knocking him unconscious with a sucker punch in order to keep his secret ... but the cattlemen figure out the secret and hold Jim hostage just as Will and Jeff come to the rescue.

Will and Jeff try and foil a trap set by an old enemy of Jim's. Meanwhile Jim spends some downtime with a beautiful saloon owner with an agenda of her own.

Will and Jeff learn that James may be coming to the town they're in to testify in favor of a man accused of murder---and that a powerful rancher who may be the real killer intends to make sure he never gets the chance.

After bringing Jeff to a doctor to recuperate from a fever, Will is ordered to serve as a juror in the case of a man accused of killing a powerful rancher's son. Will has his doubts about the man's guilt, and refuses to go along with the other jurors who just want to quickly convict and go home.

Will and Jeff stay with a poor family that James recently stayed with, and try to help them, not only with their struggle to keep their home and farm, but with the husband and wife's deteriorating relationship.

Will and Jeff stop in a town where a play is being staged about the killing of James Sonnett, and many in the town, including the actors, claim that it really happened that way.

Intended either as a series finale or the pilot for a revamped series which never materialized (shades of "Bret Maverick"), Will and Jeff finally meet up with Jim and convince him to join them as lawmen in a small town. This episode was overlooked in compilations until the early 2000s because of its scheduling at the end of a summer of reruns.