This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. I don’t know the artist. I’ve said before that RANCH ROMANCES was a good Western pulp during the Fifties, and this issue is no exception. It leads off with “Stampede Valley”, a novella by J.L. Bouma, a prolific author of Western pulp stories and novels. Bouma used very traditional plots but handled them well. This one has a powerful rancher trying to crowd out the smaller outfits in the valley. The protagonist is a young cowboy who works for the cattle baron but comes to realize he’s on the wrong side. This is a well-written, enjoyable tale that seems a little rushed at the end, its only real drawback.
Bill Burchardt’s stories and novels are often set in Indian Territory. “The Deputy’s Daughter” finds one of Judge Parker’s deputy marshals using his own daughter as bait to catch an owlhoot. It’s not a terrible story, but the writing never really caught my interest and there’s not much of a payoff. I’ve enjoyed other Burchardt stories more in the past.
The novelette “Renegade’s Girl” finds two lawmen transporting a convicted killer by train over a snowy Montana landscape to the town here he’ll be hanged. The outlaw’s victim was the twin brother of one of the lawmen. This is an excellent set-up, and since the author is Walker A. Tompkins, one of my favorites, it’s no surprise that this is a taut, suspenseful yarn. Tompkins is always good, and he’s at the top of his game in this one.
There are three more short stories in this issue. “Sinner Man” by Talmage Powell is about a traveling preacher, his beautiful daughter, and a vengeance-seeking gunfighter. “Woman for a Hoeman” is a terrible title for a cattlemen-vs.-sodbusters story by Ed La Vanway. “To Brand a Maverick” is a rare Western by Milton Lesser/Stephen Marlowe under his Adam Chase pseudonym that’s about the son of an outlaw deciding whether to go straight or follow in his father’s footsteps. All are well-written, and all have rather limp endings that really dilute their effectiveness. But they’re all readable.
There are also some assorted features and short fact articles I didn’t read, as usual, as well as the third of four serial installments of THE VENGEANCE RIDERS, a novel by Joseph Chadwick under his pseudonym Jack Barton. I didn’t read the serial, either, but I have the Popular Library edition of the novel and I might get around to reading it one of these days. Chadwick is usually good. And this is a good issue of RANCH ROMANCES based on the stories by Tompkins and Bouma, even though the rest of the fiction is pretty forgettable. It also has some nice interior art by Everett Raymond Kinstler.
UPDATE: Here's the paperback edition of THE VENGEANCE RIDERS.
4 comments:
Never knew that Milton Lesser/Stephen Marlowe wrote a Western! But those '50s end-of-pulp guys were pretty versatile. Has anyone ever compiled an anthology of Westerns by the writers from that era better known for SF or mysteries -- Evan Hunter, John Jakes, Richard Matheson, John D. MacDonald . . .?
Looks like he wrote only a couple of Western yarns, this one and another in RANCH ROMANCES earlier in 1955. He also did a few sports stories. WESTERNS OF THE 40S, edited by Damon Knight, has a story by Clifford Simak in it and maybe one by Theodore Sturgeon, I don't recall. Ed Gorman's WESTERYEAR anthology has Robert Silverberg and Harlan Ellison in it. Maybe James Blish? But as far as I know, there's never been a specific Western anthology like you describe, where the authors are famous in other genres.
All due respect to the maestro, but THE VENGEANCE RIDERS is a Popular library western (number 729), not a Paperback Library western. : )
Of course it is, dang it, Popular Library being Ned Pines' outfit, too, and I knew that. Just typed the wrong thing. I'll fix it in the post. Thanks, Richard.
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