The Civil War is over. But not for Col. Thomas Blake (Guy Madison). He leads a gang of marauders who terrorize the area around the Mexican border, looting and pillaging, all in the name of the Confederacy. Blake dispatches Chamaco Gonzalez to the town of Manassas to learn the location of a lost Confederate payroll, presumably buried after the surrender at Appomattox by Gen. Beauregard's soldiers. But Camacho gets himself captured and has a date with a firing squad.
Enter a stranger named Stuart (Edd Byrnes) who rescues Chamaco and thereby earning a meeting with Blake.
He claims to know where the payroll is buried. He wants Blake's help in retrieving it, with the end goal of helping Southerners suffering because of the war.
Blake, of course, has other ideas for the buried fortune. With a handpicked group of men back across the Rio Grande to fetch the payroll, which Stuart says is buried in a sacred cave of the Apaches, near the town of Durango.
Along the way, a pretty lady named Manuela shows up, offering her assistance.
First up, Francesco De Masi's score is awesome, livening up the proceedings even more. Payment in Blood is the third Ed Brynes' spaghetti western and it's the serious one of the two. Not much humour, just a straightforward action tale that moves at a clip and provides a fair amount of uneasy alliances, double crosses and lead flying, body count piling up. It's quite fun with Guy Madison stealing the scene as Blake, an untrusting leader of a gang. Ed Brynes does well as the clean cut hero who has an agenda to fulfil. The finale set in an Indian burial ground is really exciting.
