The Storm Riders

Cheyenne joins a group of ranchers who stand up against a corrupt landowner, but he's betrayed by the lead rancher’s wife.

Episode Notes

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Plot

Cheyenne Bodie has been severely roughed up and his stock of horses scattered courtesy of the local land baron Martin Storm and his hired gunslinger Swallow. In bad shape with broken ribs, Cheyenne rides up to a small ranch and is taken in by the Dembro family. While recuperating, Bodie learns that Storm has intimidated most of the ranchers in the area and either hired away their hands or had Swallow kill them in one-sided showdowns. Bodie takes up John Dembro's offer to work on his ranch, which is welcome news to Dembro's daughter Johnny and his wife Sheila. Before he knows it, both women are flirting with him. Sheila makes it known to Cheyenne more than once that she's romantically interested in him, but he rejects the married woman's advances.

Storm and Swallow pay the Dembro ranch a visit and Storm offers to buy it for a third of its true value. Emboldened by Cheyenne's presence, Dembro refuses to sell. When Bodie demands payment for his lost horses, Storm tells him to get the money from Swallow any time he chooses. That evening, Dembro calls a meeting of the smaller ranchers to encourage them to stand up to Storm. The ranchers all refuse; they are still intimidated by Storm and his hired gun.

The next day, Bodie rides into town to get his money. Swallow tries to shoot him off his horse and Bodie fires back, killing the blood-thirsty gunslinger. With Storm's enforcer now dead, the other ranchers are eager to join Dembro's new alliance. They hold a rowdy party which Storm crashes to personally threaten both Dembro and Bodie. After he leaves, Dembro gets fall-down drunk and Sheila drives him home while Bodie and Johnny stay to finish the alliance celebration. At the ranch, Sheila can't wake Dembro to get him out of the carriage. She accidentally tips over a lamp into some hay and starts a fire. When her half-hearted efforts to stop the blaze fail, she closes the doors to the barn and leaves her husband to burn to death.

Sheila tearfully convinces the sheriff that John Dembro's death was accidental. But back at the ranch she's acting agitated and strange, screaming in the middle of the night from bad dreams. Cheyenne stays on to keep the ranch running and manage the alliance, but he has to rebuff Sheila's advances and pathetic demands that he move in to the ranch house with her.

On a night when she's left alone, Sheila is visited by Storm. He recognizes that she's falling apart and decides to take advantage of her. When he eggs on her paranoia, she rambles about how she and Cheyenne are together and she hints that she killed John for him. Seeing his chance, Storm brings her to the sheriff's office where she claims that she and Bodie are involved in an affair and killed Dembro to take over his ranch. 

Bodie is arrested and the town is in a tizzy about the scandal. But before Cheyenne's trial can start, the circuit judge declares Sheila insane and orders Cheyenne's release. Storm and his allies stir up an angry crowd who are calling for Bodie's death. With the sheriff unwilling to help him, Cheyenne faces the mob alone and unarmed. Storm and the others get a rope around his neck with the intention of "drag hanging" him through the streets.

Before this act of perverted justice happens, Johnny and the judge bring Sheila out to face Cheyenne. Sheila changes her story and claims the whole mess was Johnny's idea. No one believes Johnny would kill her beloved father and the people see Sheila's insanity for what it is. Still holding the end of the rope around Cheyenne's neck, Storm takes off on a horse, intending to kill him anyway. Storm's horse runs Sheila down just before he himself is shot.

Back on the Dembro ranch, Cheyenne is packing up and ready to ride out. He makes an offer to Johnny to stay on and help her new hands, but the girl turns him down, acknowledging that she doesn't need his help anymore. When Johnny offers him a goodbye handshake, Cheyenne plucks her up by the waist, gives her a quick kiss and then rides away.

Quotes

"Well, drink a toast, Marty. Looks like I lost a cowhand and found me a daughter this mornin'."

- John Dembro is amused by Johnny's flirting with Cheyenne.

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"If she wants to nuzzle around some with Cheyenne I ain't goin' to interfere. A man could get stomped to death."

- John is further amused by Johnny's flirting with big Cheyenne..

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"The Indians say that if you look down a well when the moon is full you can see the face of the one you love the most."
"All I see is me."
"Maybe that's what they mean."
"Indians don't know everything."

- Cheyenne and Johnny chat about more than indian wisdom.

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"Dembro, I wanna do you a favor."
"Don't bother. I don't wanna have to like you."

- Negotiations between Martin Storm and John Dembro break down.

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"Man like him wants nothing more than a saddle with a horse under it and an open road in front of him."

- Martin Storm describes Cheyenne.

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