Jess is on the hunt for the next man on his list, Sean Aker. He heads for the town of Lonsdale, Texas, but before he gets there, he ends up meeting a rancher, Olaf Martin, who has hired four top guns.
While visiting the rancher, he finds out that Aker has killed two of Martin’s cowpunchers. Martin tries to pay Jess to go after Aker, but Jess won’t take his money, telling him he’s going after him anyway.
Martin talks Jess into letting his best hired gun, Eddie Pitman, go along with him.
Then Jess is contacted by United States Marshal Frank Reedy. Someone is killing lawmen using a Sharps buffalo rifle, but no one knows who the shooter is.
Jess is tasked with finding out who’s committing these murders of lawmen. Few clues emerge until finally Jess puts two and two together and discovers the killer’s identity.
Strangely enough, a harmonica is the key to solving the murders.
To make matters worse, this is one time Jess finds himself conflicted about killing a killer.
With a conflicted heart, Jess leaves Harrison and Martha Heller to begin his hunt for Herman Conway. The chase takes him to Lake Lillian, Texas, where he meets a young woman by the name of Bonnie, along with her young brother Fred.
When Conway discovers that Jess is in Lake Lillian, he kidnaps Fred as a bargaining chip in case Jess is on his trail. Feeling somewhat responsible, Jess goes after Conway and finds him, but has to let him escape in order to get Fred back alive.
After securing Fred’s release, Jess resumes the hunt for Conway. Along the way though, trouble seems to get in his way at every turn.
Then he meets Sam Smith.
Jess finds himself in Liberty, Texas, in a running gunfight between himself and the crazed killer, Sully Hurst. Hurst gets lucky and escapes on his horse. Jess has a bit more trouble in Liberty before leaving town and going after Hurst again.
While searching for his next hunt, he arrives in Segundo, Texas, where he gets into a wild shootout in the saloon.
While in Bream, Texas, he learns that Ansel Maclin has escaped from the state penitentiary, killing one of the prison guards in the process. He decides to hunt Maclin down, but he soon finds out that this quest will have to wait.
He gets a message from the schoolmarm, Martha Heller, in Harrison. He drops everything and heads her way.
Jess leaves Donger, Texas, and his good friend, John Bodine, to hunt for the ruthless and vicious killer, George Meyer, who was last seen in the town of Chastain.
While there, Jess sees a man bullying a young boy by the man of Johnny, but before Jess reaches them, the 150-pound timber wolf, Shadow, shows up out of nowhere to help.
When Jess continues the hunt for Meyer, Shadow joins in and accompanies him.
Jess wonders if Shadow is just along for the company…or if he knows something that Jess doesn’t.
He soon discovers that to be the case, when he is asked to hunt down three ruthless killers.
Jess leaves Opal, Texas, and travels to the town of Donger to find the next man on his hunt list, Dom Preston. In the process, Jess takes yet another bullet, which leads him to meet Dr. Sam Vaughn, a middle-aged woman with impressive skills as a doctor.
His wound is minor and he leaves Donger to take Preston’s body to the town of Waveland to turn him into the law there. He finds out about a stagecoach robbery by three outlaws. They kidnap Dr. Vaughn and force her into helping one of them who was wounded in the robbery.
One of the men who were killed in the robbery, happened to be a very wealthy man. His wife, Lizzy Draper, hires Jess to hunt down the three men who murdered her husband.
John Bodine is assigned to help Jess and the hunt becomes dangerous with Jess’s enemies trying to catch the bounty and kill him in the process.
But Jess isn’t one to go down without a fight.