That turns out to be about as far from the truth as a man can get, but Vincent Claiborn truly believed it until the end, when his own son showed him how wrong he was.
Cheyenne Bodie rides into a southern town to see a group of masked men with whips galloping away from a body in the street. Neither the sheriff nor any of the other townsmen call it murder. Cheyenne is there to deliver a pony to his friend Paul's adolescent son, Gerald, and hopefully, to take the boy back north to be with his father, so he continues with his mission undeterred by the extreme lack of southern hospitality. The boy has been brainwashed by his Confederacy-entrenched grandfather and uncle, so refuses to go with Cheyenne or accept the pony. Then Cheyenne becomes another whipping boy, and that makes him very angry. Restrained and careful as Bodie has proven to be time and again even when provoked, men have learned the hard way not to make him very angry.
There are a number of side elements to this story, including the underhanded dealings of landgrabbers, the price of cotton, and the self-righteous morality police, all intertwined with the basic theme that some diehards, who call themselves "the Regulators," refuse to accept Lee's surrender at Appomattox, and they make their point in the most theatrical way possible. Never mind; Cheyenne Bodie has faced bigotry, greed, and violence before, but it hasn't stopped him yet. It takes a mob with a tar-and-feather mentality to bring things to a head. Clint Walker without a shirt stops them dead, but that might have been more for the viewing audience than for the onstage players.
The cast is good if you discount some of the bogus southern accents. John Litel plays the patriarch of the Claiborn family, a "true Southern gentleman" who really doesn't believe in the violence, even when he learns too late that the ringleader of it all is his own devious son, Ashley. Batman-in-waiting Adam West is not quite the heroic figure when sharing screen time with Clint Walker. Jean Byron is the widow of the man killed in the beginning, the local schoolmarm who cares deeply about young Gerald Claiborn and hates to see his mind so corrupted by his uncle, Ashley. It's a good thing Cheyenne Bodie came into the boy's life when he did, just in time to show him what a real man looks, acts, and sounds like. In the end, Gerald is reunited with his father, and Cheyenne looks on with satisfaction for another mission accomplished.
Cheyenne Bodie rides into a southern town to see a group of masked men with whips galloping away from a body in the street. Neither the sheriff nor any of the other townsmen call it murder. Cheyenne is there to deliver a pony to his friend Paul's adolescent son, Gerald, and hopefully, to take the boy back north to be with his father, so he continues with his mission undeterred by the extreme lack of southern hospitality. The boy has been brainwashed by his Confederacy-entrenched grandfather and uncle, so refuses to go with Cheyenne or accept the pony. Then Cheyenne becomes another whipping boy, and that makes him very angry. Restrained and careful as Bodie has proven to be time and again even when provoked, men have learned the hard way not to make him very angry.
There are a number of side elements to this story, including the underhanded dealings of landgrabbers, the price of cotton, and the self-righteous morality police, all intertwined with the basic theme that some diehards, who call themselves "the Regulators," refuse to accept Lee's surrender at Appomattox, and they make their point in the most theatrical way possible. Never mind; Cheyenne Bodie has faced bigotry, greed, and violence before, but it hasn't stopped him yet. It takes a mob with a tar-and-feather mentality to bring things to a head. Clint Walker without a shirt stops them dead, but that might have been more for the viewing audience than for the onstage players.
The cast is good if you discount some of the bogus southern accents. John Litel plays the patriarch of the Claiborn family, a "true Southern gentleman" who really doesn't believe in the violence, even when he learns too late that the ringleader of it all is his own devious son, Ashley. Batman-in-waiting Adam West is not quite the heroic figure when sharing screen time with Clint Walker. Jean Byron is the widow of the man killed in the beginning, the local schoolmarm who cares deeply about young Gerald Claiborn and hates to see his mind so corrupted by his uncle, Ashley. It's a good thing Cheyenne Bodie came into the boy's life when he did, just in time to show him what a real man looks, acts, and sounds like. In the end, Gerald is reunited with his father, and Cheyenne looks on with satisfaction for another mission accomplished.