In 1865, Trace Garrett, a war-weary and haggard young man returns to his Missouri farm to find that his kid brother, Charlie, has been lynched by a brutal band of seven Yankee raiders. Only the fast action of old Jason, the family's black retainer, saved the boy. Jason dispatches Trace to the house, where he finds his father slain, his mother ravaged, mutilated and murdered. In a black rage, Trace follows a trail of blood and plunders across the rugged frontier in hot pursuit of the border bandits. As Trace kills each bandit, he burns the mark of the serpent into their foreheads.. Cries shout out and call Trace by his new name...Trace SAVAGE!