the tall man in 'trail west to fury'

Actually, I know the background story to this episode. If you have ever seen the Fugative with David Jannsen and his pursuit of the ONE ARMED man. elements of the FUGATIVE are based on This episode Trail West to Fury. Instead of the ONE ARMED man like in the fugative, this episode has the TALL man. Which the Mavericks NEVER see or find again. And that's why Bart and Bret NEVER returned to Texas again.

JLB, to my knowledge The Tall Man and the whole "wanted in Texas" thing was never mentioned again. It was just a catch for that one episode, I believe. TV did that a lot in the pre-cable days when shows weren't re-run all the time. Like in Andy Griffith--in one episode Gomer Pyle would be a mechanic; in another he couldn't fix cars, only fill them up. In Happy Days, Richie starts out with a big brother and then suddenly the bro doesn't exist.

There were episodes where the Mavericks did return to Texas. Two that come to mind are "Pappy" (Bret going to Troy Donohue's hometown) and "Escape to Tampico" (Bret follows Gerald Mohr to Corpus Christi if I remember right). But a lot of the episodes seemed to feature fictional towns, so they could have been anywhere.

I think Sathill makes a good point about the One-Armed Man vs. The Tall Man similarity. Both shows had Roy Huggins' imprint and he used a simple but intriguing phrase to make both searches more intriguing. However, while the search was the theme throughout the Fugitive, I believe it was a one-episode thing in Maverick.

Actually, the incident of the Tall Man seems to be alluded to in the very early episode, Point Blank. I believe that Roy Huggins had this back story built into the character of Maverick early on, but it never figured into an episode until Trail West to Fury, and then it was forgotten completely. That is, until Huggins began developing The Fugitive.

Point Blank was the second episode to air but it was, in fact, intended by Roy Huggins to be the pilot Warner Brothers made Huggins write a new pilot based on a story the studio already owned (War of the Silver Kings) the rights to so that Huggins couldn't get credited as the series' creator. As the intended pilot, certain expositional scenes were worked into Point Blank to ground the character.

At one point in the Point Blank, Bret Maverick is with a girl on a picnic, and she asks him what made him become a drifter. Maverick answers "I keep on the move because I'm looking for a man. Sometimes I'm afraid I might find him... have to settle down." The girl then asks "Do you want to tell me about it?" Bret answers, "Not now. Someday." and then kisses her.

I've never heard it discussed or referred to, but this sure seems to me like an early allusion to what later became the Tall Man of Trail West to Fury. As far as I've noticed, it was never mentioned again. Maybe we can assume that Bret and/or Bart DID find the Tall Man at some point, because many later episodes take place in Texas. In fact, an episode between Point Blank (episode 2) and Trail West to Fury (episode 21) took place in Bandera, a cattle town in Texas (The Quick and the Dead, episode 12), where Bret runs into Doc Holliday.