Lightning Triggers

In a saloon, Butch Greer, the righthand man of cattle rustler Bull Thompson, picks a fight with Reb Russell, a government agent working undercover for the Cattlemen's Association. The local sheriff breaks up the fight and in order to protect Reb's identity, of which he is aware, he makes a phony arrest. Reb decides to infiltrate Bull's gang and when he later sees Butch out riding alone, he tells him that he has just escaped from the local jail and wants to join up with Bull's men. However, Butch, suspicious, overpowers Reb, ties him to a tree and takes off with Rebel, Reb's horse. Rebel escapes and makes his way back to Reb, where he frees him from the tree and, although his hands are still bound, Reb then heads for Bull's hideout in a group of desolate shacks up in the hills. Arriving at the hideout, Reb meets Marion, the starstruck daughter of Bull's common-law wife, Minerva, and she unties his bindings. Although she is disappointed to learn that Reb is just another rustler trying to join the gang and does not know any movie stars, Marion agrees to introduce him to Bull and divulges the secrets of the rustling operation. The conversation is interrupted by the appearance of the jealous Butch, who wants to marry Marion, but has been refused. He and one of his cohorts prepare to shoot Reb, but he is saved by Blackie, another member of the gang, who later reveals that he did Reb a good turn because Reb once took care of his mother while he was in jail. After Bull refuses to involve the gang in a bank robbery, a disgruntled Butch secretly encourages the rest of the gang to defect and join him in his scheme to blow open the bank's safe using nitroglycerine explosives in Bull's possession. Bull foils their attempt to steal the explosives. Marion introduces Reb to Bull, who advises him to go straight, but nevertheless accepts him into the gang. Later, however, Juan, one of Bull's henchmen, recognizes Reb as the range detective who sent him to prison in Texas. Marion is overjoyed to learn that Reb is not a common rustler until Bull reminds her that no lawman caught spying on the gang gets out alive. Blackie and Marion plead for Reb's life and Butch suggests that Bull, who has never been beaten, fight Reb, with Reb going free if he succeeds in winning. Bull acquiesces and Reb is the victor of their fistfight. After Reb sets off on horseback, taking Marion with him, Butch reveals to Bull, whose real name is Big Bill Russell, that Reb is the son he left behind twenty years before when he became a fugitive from the law. Butch and the rest of the gang then ride off in pursuit of Reb and Marion, but Blackie and Bull follow, armed with the explosives. They ambush Butch and his men in a narrow canyon and throw bombs at them, killing them all, as Reb and Marion ride to safety.