Yuma 1971

Dave Harmon, Clint Walker, a former lieutenant in the U.S. Army, is sent to Yuma as the territory’s new U.S. Marshal after a brutal crime against his family leaves him seeking justice—the criminals are described only by the detail that they wore army uniforms. He decides to take postings near frontier army posts to conduct his own investigation.

Yuma sits beside an army post commanded by Major Lucas, Peter Mark Richman, with an adjacent Indian reservation adding tension to Harmon’s mission.

On Harmon’s first day, two drunk criminals—the King brothers, Sam King Bruce Glover and Rol King Bing Russell—stage a hijack of a stagecoach just outside town. Harmon steps in, arresting one for theft and, after prodding the other into drawing his weapon, kills him in self-defense at the town saloon.

Behind this violent incident lies a plan to lure Harmon’s next move. A nighttime jail break organized by Sanders, Robert Phillips, a corrupt agent of a local freight baron, is designed to push the remaining King brother—the third, Arch King Morgan Woodward, an honest cattleman—into killing the Marshal. The killer also has Major Lucas’s subordinate, Captain White John Kerr, assist him, as part of a larger scheme to defraud the Indians out of cattle due them under treaty.

Andres, Miguel Alejandro, a Mexican orphan Harmon had taken in, is the lone witness to the break-in. He wakes to the sounds of the crime and glimpses only the killers’ boots—the distinctive U.S. Cavalry boots worn by Captain White—providing Harmon with a crucial lead that points toward the nearby army post.

The third King brother arrives in town and demands justice, granting Harmon time to uncover the truth. Undeterred, Harmon pursues the killer and begins to unravel a wider corruption that touches the Indians, who threaten revolt but eventually offer their support as the investigation unfolds.

Against a backdrop of frontier law, personal vengeance, and political intrigue, Harmon’s resolve tests the limits of duty as he navigates a web of deceit that binds soldiers, merchants, and tribal peoples alike, all while trying to keep Yuma from sliding into greater conflict.