This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy
in the scan. The cover artwork is by Sam Cherry, who did nearly all of the
TEXAS RANGERS covers during the Fifties and always did a great job. This one
illustrates, sort of, the opening scene of this issue’s novel.
As far as I’m concerned, there’s a Big Four of authors who wrote Jim Hatfield
novels under the house-name Jackson Cole: A. Leslie Scott, the creator of the
series; Tom Curry; Walker A. Tompkins; and Peter Germano, the author of this
issue’s novel “The Outlaw Nobody Knew”. Germano, who also wrote a lot of very
good novels under the name Barry Cord, was the most hardboiled of the bunch.
His prose is terse and fast-moving, and there’s no “Yuh mangy polecat” dialect.
While I love the standard Western pulp dialogue, I like this approach, too.
(Roe Richmond actually wrote more Hatfields than Germano, but I don’t like his
novels so I don’t count him as a major Hatfield author.)
Germano really packs a lot of plot and characters into “The Outlaw Nobody Knew”.
The mysterious bandit boss of the title has kidnapped the governor’s son in an
attempt to keep his brother from being hanged. Hatfield has only six days and
the narrowest of leads to find the boy. His search takes him to a mining town
in West Texas. At the same time, a young former carnival tightrope walker shows
up in town on a quest of his own. Also on hand are a shady gambler/saloonkeeper,
assorted gunmen, a hotel owner who quotes classic Greek literature, and an old desert
rat prospector who thinks he’s actually a sea captain. There’s so much going on
that it’s actually a little hard to keep track of at times, but Germano keeps
the story racing along anyway until it arrives at a twist ending that isn’t
really that much of a surprise but is very effective anyway.
There’s an oddity about this one in that Hatfield dresses differently than he
usually does, sporting a long black frock coat, a string tie, and a
flat-crowned black hat. That just happens to be what a character is wearing in
an interior illustration which also features another character who looks like
Wild Bill Hickok. And Germano specifically mentions that the local marshal
resembles Wild Bill Hickok. My hunch is that this illustration existed before
the story was written, and Germano made the descriptions match it. No way of
knowing, of course, but I’m always suspicious about such things. What’s
important, though, is that “The Outlaw Nobody Knew” is a good solid Hatfield
novel, not one of the top rank but well worth reading.
Robert Virgil published only four stories, according to the Fictionmags Index. “Rancher’s
Woman” in this issue is the first of those. And it’s a really good one, a
well-written Western noir about a middle-aged rancher, his younger, beautiful,
restless wife, and the world-weary hired hand who signs on. This is the stuff
of countless Gold Medal novels, but Virgil distills it down to a few pages and
then gives us a surprising, very effective ending. I know I have at least one
of his other stories and may go ahead and read that issue soon.
Ben Frank was the pseudonym of a writer named Frank Bennett, who wrote mostly
humorous Westerns for the pulps. He had a long series about an old-timer known
as Doc Swap, and another about a deputy named Boo-Boo Bounce. I’m not a fan of
either of those series. Frank’s story in this issue, “The Champ of Cottonwood
County”, is a stand-alone, and while it’s a comedy, it’s not as silly as some
of his that I’ve read. It’s a romantic comedy, at that, about a hapless rancher
trying to woo the girl of his dreams while ignoring the fact that a female friend
of his is prettier and more suitable in every way than the girl he pines after.
There’s also a robbery, a fugitive outlaw, an overbearing rival rancher, and a
little bit of action before things come to a predictable conclusion. It’s
fairly well-written and mildly amusing, and for a Ben Frank yarn, I thought it
was pretty good.
I’m a big fan of the cavalry novelettes Steuart Emery wrote for TEXAS RANGERS,
and he did quite a few of them. The one featured in this issue is ”The Shooting
Sawbones”. The protagonist, John Rawdon, is about to graduate from West Point
when an accident leaves him with a permanent bum knee. He can’t serve as a
combat officer, but he can become a medical officer, which he does. His first
post is an isolated fort in Arizona Territory, and wouldn’t you know it, a
series of unusual circumstances leaves Rawdon in command of the fort just as a
horde of hostile Apaches show up to attack it. There’s also a girl—there’s
always a girl—who, in this case, is the daughter of a bitter retired officer
who hates army doctors. Sure, I knew most of what was going to happen in this
one, but Emery can really write and his military stories have a definite air of
authenticity. Plus his characters often don’t turn out exactly the way you
think they will, and he can surprise me now and then with a plot twist. “The
Shooting Sawbones” is a very entertaining story and I look forward to reading more
of Emery’s work. He wrote hundreds of stories, going back to 1919, many of them
aviation and air war yarns in the Twenties and Thirties. I need to sample some
of those.
D.S. Halacy Jr. wrote dozens of stories for the pulps and the slicks in several
different genres, including Westerns, mysteries, and sports stories. His
contribution to this issue, a short-short titled “Family Affair” is about a
U.S. Marshal corralling an outlaw, with a twist ending that’s pretty obvious.
This is a minor but well-written story that doesn’t pack as much punch as it
thinks it does.
Peter Fernandez is another author who published only a few stories, half a
dozen according to the Fictionmags Index. “Apache Alibi” is about a shipment of
gold on a stagecoach and the various would-be thieves plotting to get their
hands on it. Like “Rancher’s Wife”, this is pure Western noir and is about as
bleak as they come. It’s a good story, but it’ll leave you feeling a little
grubby.
W.J. Reynolds wrote about 120 stories, most of them Westerns, in a career that
covered the Forties, Fifties, Sixties, and a little way into the Seventies. “The
Devil Walks Loudly” is about a braggart who tries to make himself into a fast
gun, an effort that seems doomed to failure from the start. This story is hurt
a little by the fact that there’s not a single likable character in it, but it
moves along and works fairly well. Reynolds is worth reading, but this one isn’t
one of his best stories.
There’s an installment of S. Omar Barker’s “Sagebrush Savvy” column, in which
he answers questions from readers (supposedly; who know whether they’re legit
or not) and I always enjoy these. Barker was an entertaining writer.
This is a good issue of TEXAS RANGERS. While some stories are better than
others, they’re all worth reading and several of them are very good. The pulp
era was starting to wind down by this point, but there was still plenty of good
reading to be found among the ones that survived that long.
