Ernest Haycox

Stagecoach

Story follows a stagecoach ride through Old West Apache territory. On board are a cavalry man's pregnant wife, a prostitute with a broken heart, a Marshal taking in his prisoner Johnny Ringo, a crooked gambler, and the infamous Doc Holliday

Stagecoach

A group of unlikely travelling companions find themselves on the same stagecoach to Cheyenne. They include a drunken doctor, a bar girl who's been thrown out of town, a professional gambler, a travelling liquor salesman, a banker who has decided to embezzle money, a gun-slinger out for revenge and a young woman going to join her army captain husband. All have secrets but when they are set upon by an Indian war party and then a family of outlaws, they find they must all work together if they are to stay alive.

Apache War Smoke

An outlaw murders several Apaches and flees to a stagecoach way station with the tribe in hot pursuit. A stagecoach and its passengers have just pulled into the station, as has the stationmaster's father, a former bandit named Peso, and they all find themselves besieged by the Apaches, who want them to turn over the killer to them or they'll take the station and kill everybody. The problem is that the people in the station aren't sure just who among therm is the actual killer.

Bugles in the Afternoon

Old enemies stationed together at an Army post vie for the same woman.

Man in the Saddle

A small rancher is being harassed by his mighty and powerful neighbor. When the neighbor even hires gunmen to intimidate him he has to defend himself and his property by means of violence.

Montana

An Australian sheep man comes to Montana looking for grazing space, is opposed by local ranchers and a wealthy cattle-woman.

Heaven Only Knows

Also released as Montana Mike, Heaven Only Knows is an offbeat western with fantasy overtones. Hard-bitten gambling boss Brian Donlevy rules his frontier community with brawn and bullets. To his dismay, Donlevy discovers that he has a guardian angel (Robert Cummings), who shows up in the guise of an Eastern tenderfoot. The angel has been sent from Above to save Donlevy's soul, and to that end encourages the one-time villain to squire a minister's daughter (Jorja Curtwright) rather than his usual dance-hall girls. Donlevy is also given tips on winning against his enemies without resorting to gunplay. The gambler finally redeems himself with Heaven by rescuing the angel from a lynch mob (how can you lynch an angel?) Heaven Only Knows deserves an "E" for Effort for bringing a fresh twist to the venerable western genre.

Canyon Passage

In 1850s Oregon, a businessman is torn between his love of two very different women and his loyalty to a compulsive gambler friend who goes over the line.

Abilene Town

Marshall Dan Mitchell, who is the law in Abilene, has the job of keeping peace between two groups. For a long time, the town had been divided, with the cattlemen and cowboys having one end of town to themselves, while townspeople occupied the other end. Mitchell liked it this way, it made things easier for him, and kept problems from arising between the two factions. However…

Apache Trail

The brother of a notorious outlaw is put in a charge of a stagecoach line way station in dangerous Apache territory. A stagecoach arrives at the station with a valuable box of cargo, and the outlaw brother soon shows up, though denying that he's planning to take the cargo box. Soon, however, rampaging Apaches attack the station, and the station manager, his brother and a disparate group of passengers and employees must fight them off.

Sundown Jim

US marshal Sundown Jim Majors main purpose in life is to bring a deadly frontier feud to a peaceful end. This requires him to clean out the local criminal element, which he does with determination.

Union Pacific

One of the last bills signed by President Lincoln authorizes pushing the Union Pacific Railroad across the wilderness to California. But financial opportunist Asa Barrows hopes to profit from obstructing it. Chief troubleshooter Jeff Butler has his hands full fighting Barrows' agent, gambler Sid Campeau; Campeau's partner Dick Allen is Jeff's war buddy and rival suitor for engineer's daughter Molly Monahan. Who will survive the effort to push the railroad through at any cost?

Stagecoach

A group of people traveling on a stagecoach find their journey complicated by the threat of Geronimo, and learn something about each other in the process.