This is a pulp that I own and read recently. The cover art
is by Sam Cherry. The Jim Hatfield novel in this issue has some historical
significance in the series as it’s the first one attributed to Peter B. Germano
(best remembered for his novels under the pseudonym Barry Cord). Germano would
go on to be one of the primary authors of the series during the Fifties,
contributing 16 Hatfield novels, behind only Walker A. Tompkins (24 Hatfields
during the Fifties, 28 overall) and Roe Richmond (22 Hatfields).
In “Secret of Dry Valley”, the plot finds Hatfield traveling to the Texas
Panhandle in answer to a summons for help from an old friend of his boss,
Captain Bill McDowell. When he gets there, he finds that the old friend (and
former Ranger) has disappeared, and there’s a war brewing between the local
cattle baron and a saloon owner who carry old grudges against each other.
Working undercover, Hatfield survives a couple of bushwhackings, a pair of
fistfights, and showdowns against fast on the draw gunslicks. Along the way to
figuring out what’s really going on, he rescues a beautiful young woman (yes,
she’s the cattle baron’s daughter) from quicksand. (In the immortal words of
Bill Crider, quicksand makes any story better.) Hatfield triumphs in the end,
of course, after some nice action scenes.
“Secret of Dry Valley” reads in some ways like an author’s first novel in an
established series. It seems to me to be influenced by the work of the series’
two primary authors before this point, Leslie Scott and Tom Curry, and it’s
likely that Germano read at least a few of their entries before tackling a
Hatfield novel of his own. There’s a proxy hero whose job is to help Hatfield
and wind up with the girl, a character type who shows up in nearly all of
Curry’s Hatfield novels. The main plot point revolves around geography and an
engineering problem, as in many of Scott’s Hatfield novels. There’s no mention
of Hatfield’s engineering training in college before he became a Ranger, but he
demonstrates such knowledge in solving the mystery.
At the same time, indications that this yarn is by a new author show up here
and there. Hatfield is often referred to the narrative as “Jim”, something the
other authors hardly ever do. He’s dressed in a suit, white shirt, and string
tie throughout the novel, very different from the range clothes he usually
wears. I can see doing that if there’s a good reason for it in the plot, but
there’s not. He’s supposed to be working undercover, and yet he gives his real
name to everybody he encounters. Eventually, some of the other characters
remember there’s a famous Texas Ranger known as the Lone Wolf whose name is Jim
Hatfield, but it takes a long time.
Despite those quibbles, “Secret of Dry Valley” is a pretty entertaining story.
It has a little of the terse yet poetic, hardboiled prose that will become more
common in Germano’s later entries in the series. The action is good, the
settings are rendered fairly vividly, and there are a few small but effective
plot twists. Germano’s Hatfield novels got better as he went along, but “Secret of Dry
Valley” is a good solid start and well worth reading.
“El Soldado” is a short story by the always reliable Gordon D. Shirreffs. It's
a Civil War tale set in New Mexico, in which a lone Union soldier tries to
prevent a gang of Confederate irregulars from making off with a bunch of vital
supplies. Shirreffs wrote several novels about the Civil War in the West, and
while the plot in this story is a little thin because of its length, the
writing is excellent.
The novelette “The Unholy Grail” is a Prodigal Son story by Roe Richmond. After
his older brother is gunned down, Mike Grail, a fast gun and hellraising
drifter dubbed by his father The Unholy Grail, returns home to help his family
survive a feud with some old enemies. This is also a Romeo and Juliet story
since Mike is in love with the daughter of his father’s arch-nemesis, and one
of the sons from the rival family is in love with Mike’s sister. Richmond’s
work is usually hit-or-miss with me, but this one lands squarely in the middle.
The characters are interesting and there are some good action scenes, but the
writing often seems rushed. I think this story might have been better as a
novella or even a novel. It needed more room to develop.
“William and the Contract Buck” by Jim Kjelgaard is a bit of an oddity, a short
story about some city slickers trying to put one over on a dumb hillbilly—but is
he? This is well-written, as Kjelgaard’s stories always are, but there’s really
not much to it and it’s out of place in a Western pulp. I think it must have
been aimed at the slicks, or possibly at ADVENTURE, and sold to the Thrilling
Group when it was rejected elsewhere. But that’s just a guess on my part.
Jim O’Mara was the pseudonym of Vernon Fluharty, who also wrote Westerns under
the name Michael Carder. His story in this issue, “When the Sun Goes Down”, is
about a looming showdown between a brutal town-taming lawman and a young former
outlaw who’s trying to go straight. There’s some very nice action in this
story, but it doesn’t come until after Fluharty has explored the complex
personalities of several well-rounded characters. This is a superb story, extremely
well-written, and it comes to a very satisfying conclusion. Fluharty is another
writer who’s pretty inconsistent, in my opinion, but he really nailed this one.
I loved it.
The issue wraps up with “Riddle of the Wastelands” by A. Leslie, who was really our
old friend Alexander Leslie Scott, of course. This tale is about a young cowboy
trying to figure out how the cattle stolen by rustlers are mysteriously
disappearing. He does so, of course, and sets a trap for the wideloopers that
results in a big gun battle. It’s the sort of thing Scott did countless times,
but he does it very well in this one and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Overall, I’d say this is an average issue of TEXAS RANGERS, but you have to
remember, “average” for this pulp is pretty darned good. The Hatfield novel is
enjoyable, although Germano did better work later on in the series culminating
in “Rendezvous at Quito” in the next-to-the-last issue, January 1958, which is
one of my all-time favorite Hatfield yarns. The stories by Shirreffs and Scott
are dependably good, the ones by Richmond and Kjelgaard somewhat disappointing.
But I had a good time reading this one and look forward to reading another
issue of TEXAS RANGERS in the near future.