Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Thrilling Western, November 1951

I featured this cover more than ten years ago, but I recently read my copy of this pulp. That’s it in the scan. This is one of my favorite Western pulp covers. It’s by Clarence Doore, which I didn’t know when I posted about it the first time. I also mentioned in the earlier post that I had read the expanded paperback version of Leslie Scott’s novella “The Texan”, which was published by Paperback Library in 1952 under the pseudonym Scott Leslie. I’m pretty sure that was wrong, because when I read the pulp version in this issue, I didn’t remember it at all.

As the cover says, it’s set in Tombstone, and a lot of historical characters appear in it: the Earp brothers, Doc Holliday, Johnny Behan, Curly Bill Brocius, Johnny Ringo, the Clantons and McLowreys, Three-Finger Jack Robles, etc. A few historical incidents figure peripherally in the plot. But mostly it’s the story of Jed Slone, the Texan of the title, who has spent the past several years in Mexico living the life of a good-guy outlaw, including leading his band of helpers known as the Dorados, which, according to Scott, means “Golden Men” because they all wear yellow shirts. Now, I don’t know if that’s what it means at all, and I’m too lazy to look it up, but hey, I’m willing to go with that. Sure. It’s a nice dramatic bit, even though the Dorados play no part in this yarn other than being mentioned.

Mostly “The Texan” is about Jed Slone sorting out who’s been rustling cattle from the Cross G ranch owned by old Don Roberto Garcia, who has a beautiful niece named Gypsy. (Scott liked naming heroines Gypsy. I can think of several others.) While he’s doing that, he hangs around with Wyatt Earp, makes a mortal enemy out of Curly Bill, and does a lot of riding and shooting. The identity of the mastermind behind all the trouble is extremely obvious.

But (you’ve heard this before) I don’t care. Scott writes great action scenes, he indulges in some of his patented flowery landscape descriptions that somehow work just fine for me, and the story is paced to keep me flipping the pages. This one shows a few more signs of hurried writing that most of Scott’s stories, but nothing that I can’t overlook. I just like the way the guy tells a tale.

I don’t know anything about William L. Jackson except that he wrote dozens of Western and sports yarns for various pulps in the Forties and Fifties. His story in this issue, “Run Him Out”, is about the clash between a liveryman and a powerful rancher. It’s well-written but not very memorable.

Clay Randall was actually Clifton Adams, and Adams was always good. His novelette in this issue, “Fire Fight”, is no exception. It has a fairly standard plot—a big land and cattle company is trying to run out the smaller ranchers—but the villains use range fires as their primary weapon instead of rustling, which is a bit of an unusual twist. Adams’ writing, as always, is hardboiled and fast-paced and the plot takes some intriguing turns. There’s one plot hole that bothered me some, but overall this is a good yarn, not top-notch Adams but certainly worth reading.

“Never Come Back” is a short story by the prolific and dependable Giff Cheshire. It’s about a rancher who runs off the wild, outlaw brother of the girl he loves, only to have the young man return looking for vengeance, backed by a gunslinger he’s fallen in with. Well-written and with good characterization, it has a nice gunfight and a satisfying conclusion. I don’t think Cheshire will ever be one of my favorite Western writers, but his work is usually entertaining.

The issue wraps up with the novelette “Tough Tophand” by Del Rayburn, billed on the Table of Contents as a Western classic because it’s actually a reprint from the November 1946 issue of EXCITING WESTERN, where it appeared under the title “Tough Texas Tophand”. The story is about the clash between a Texas cowboy and a clan of renegade Mormons in Montana. It’s a little over-the-top (the protagonist’s name is Hondo Uvalde) but the author won me over with plenty of well-written action and some interesting characters. I don’t know anything about Del Rayburn except that he wrote a couple of dozen stories for the Western pulps from the late Forties to the mid-Fifties. I wouldn’t call “Tough Tophand” a Western classic, but it’s an enjoyable story.

This is a solid issue of THRILLING WESTERN with a great cover, a very good story by Leslie Scott, and good stories by the other authors who contributed. I’m glad I finally got around to reading it.