I’ve enjoyed all the Navajo Tom Raine stories I’ve read in the pulp EXCITING WESTERN and have written about several of them in various posts. But it occurs to me that many of you may not own any issues of EXCITING WESTERN. However, you can still read four of the Navajo Raine novelettes in an e-book collection entitled PERDITION that’s available on Amazon. I had already read one of them, so I decided to check out the others.
This collection leads off with “Boothill Beller Box”, the story I’d read before. Here’s what I said a few weeks ago when I posted about the October 1944 issue it’s in.
“The novelette “Boothill Beller Box” is a notable one. It’s part of a long series starring Arizona Ranger “Navajo” Tom Raine, and this story features Raine teaming up with Wayne Morgan, the Masked Rider, and Morgan’s sidekick, the Yaqui Indian Blue Hawk. As far as I know, this is one of only two such crossover stories between Thrilling Group Western characters. Steve Reese from RANGE RIDERS WESTERN appears in an earlier Navajo Raine story, “Rawhide Ranger”, in the April 1944 issue of EXCITING WESTERN. The title “Boothill Beller Box” refers to a telephone line being strung from a cowtown to a nearby logging camp. This is a loggers vs. cattlemen story in which Wayne Morgan is framed for murder. Just like in 1960s Marvel Comics, the two heroes meet and fight at first before realizing they’re on the same side, after which they team up to defeat the bad guy. The author of this one packs quite a bit into it and it’s a really good yarn. Unfortunately, a proofreading and/or typesetting error almost ruins the story by completely invalidating the big twist in the plot. I salvaged it by editing it in my head back to what it should have been.”
I went on to speculate about who actually wrote this story under the house-name Jackson Cole. My guess of Chuck Martin turned out to be wrong. The actual author is C. William Harrison, a dependable and prolific pulpster who also wrote paperbacks under his own name and as Coe Williams and Will Hickok. I wasn’t surprised to find out he wrote this novelette because I almost always enjoy his work. Also, the person who put this e-book together fixed the editing mistake from the original pulp version, so if this is the only one you read, you’ll never know that glitch was there.
Next up is “Ride Your Hunch, Ranger” from the May 1950 issue of EXCITING WESTERN. A notorious outlaw and gunfighter has sent word that he’s going to give up his guns and turn himself in to a local sheriff. Raine is on hand when that unexpected development occurs, but not surprisingly, there’s more to the plot that than and everything leads to a big showdown between the Arizona Ranger and a gang of killers. This story is by a different author, and once again I’m going to make a guess who was behind the Jackson Cole name: Lee Bond. This story has several similarities to Bond’s style in his long-running Long Sam Littlejohn series in TEXAS RANGERS. The characters spend a lot of time explaining the plot to each other so the reader can follow along, and during those conversations they almost always address each other by name. The story’s climax, with Raine facing off in a shootout against several men, is also reminiscent of the Long Sam stories. Bond has been identified as the author of the first nine Navajo Raine stories, so I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to believe he came back for some of the later ones, as well. But, again, this is just an educated guess and could be wrong.
“Passport to Perdition”, from the February 1945 issue, is another one that’s been attributed to C. William Harrison. When I saw that title, my first thought was that maybe Bennie Gardner wrote it. Gardner, best known under his pseudonym Gunnison Steele, wrote hundreds of stories and novels for the Western pulps, among them a Rio Kid novel called “Passport to Perdition” (THE RIO KID WESTERN, August 1948). But maybe this was just a case of two authors coming up with the same admittedly catchy title. This story opens with Raine being on hand for the ghost town showdown between a wealthy mine owner and an outlaw gang led by the mine owner’s former partner, who turned bad after his partner cheated him out of his share of the bonanza. The resulting gun battle would be the climax in many pulp Western stories. In this one it takes place early on and leads to an unexpected aftermath. Harrison is really at the top of his game in this one: vivid, evocative prose, great action, and genuine moral complexity in the characters, including Navajo Raine. This is easily the best story from this series that I’ve read so far.
This collection concludes with “Take a Rest, Ranger”, from the July 1949 issue. Raine is on his way to the town of Wagon Gap to take on a new assignment, but he doesn’t know the details. He’s supposed to collect a letter from his boss, Captain Burt Mossman, when he gets there that will tell him what to do. But before he can do that, he’s ambushed and finds himself mixed up in a dangerous scheme that involves the murder of a sheriff. Of course, he gets that sorted out and finally finds out what his new orders are, and they’re not what he expected at all. I think this one is by Lee Bond, although I’m not nearly as sure of that attribution as I was with the earlier “Ride Your Hunch, Ranger”. The big shootout at the end between Raine and several foes certainly smacks of Bond’s work, but that’s not definitive. I’m going to have to let this one go with a guess and nothing more.
I enjoyed this collection quite a bit. The two stories by Harrison are clearly superior, and I’m definitely going to seek out more of his contributions to the series. But they’re all entertaining and have increased my fondness for Navajo Tom Raine’s adventures. If you want a good sampling of Western pulp action, I give PERDITION a high recommendation.
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