The Big Valley

Handy Random, the man who killed the man that killed Tom Barkley, comes to Stockton. It's a happy reunion for all but Heath who hates the man, and for good reason. Everywhere he goes he starts range wars to profit from them.

A guilt-ridden Jarrod offers to help a man that he helped to convict of a crime that Jarrod now knows that he did not commit. Even though the man threatened to kill Jarrod at the trial.

Jarrod is happy to see an old law school friend...until he learns there is a secret service agent on his tail. It seems everywhere Skyler goes counterfeit money follows, and Jarrod is determined to find out what's going on with his old friend.

Nick returns from a trip from San Francisco with a big surprise. . . a fiancee!! While he is completely smitten with her, the rest of the family isn't so quickly won over. They see the truth, that she's just not ready to leave behind the life of parties and numerous suitors, to which she has become accustomed.

While out counting cattle Heath comes across a dead animal. When he gets down off of his horse to investigate, he is shot by the same raw-hiders who killed the cow. When they realize that he is still alive, they decide to take him back to the ranch for a finder's "reward". Once there they find that all of the other men are gone for at least a week, leaving the house and all within ripe for the picking.

Jarrod decides to bring home one of his clients, a young woman named Maybelle, for Christmas. Her accused crime, aiding and abetting her outlaw boyfriend, a boyfriend who recently escaped from jail and is now looking for Maybelle.

A group of Irish immigrants settle down on Barkley land, believing that they bought the land legally. Nick, along with the others at first, believes they are merely squatters. They, however, refuse to believe that the land does not belong to them.

When the Barkleys invite the foreman of their logging operations to dinner, Heath is ready to kill the man on sight. The man was commander of a prison camp where Heath suffered and watched his comrades die.

Victoria is in a mission church with a pregnant Indian woman, when an earthquake collapses it into a forgotten mine underneath. As if the situation isn't isn't bad enough. . they are also trapped with a man whom Nick had fired and who now has a serious grudge against the Barkleys.

Heath falls for a beautiful Spanish girl, whose father happens to be involved in a land dispute with the Barkleys! Her father disapproves of Heath because of his illegitimate birth, picturing a much finer bred man for his only daughter. He sets about using the land problems to break them apart.

While Heath investigates violence at one of the Barkley mines, he discovers that the miners hate the Barkleys for unkept promises. This discovered, they work to set things right before anything else happens.