Review: Heart's Misdeal - Elsa Barker (Ranch Romances, Second February Number 1944)

Elsa Barker was married to S. Omar Barker, the cowboy poet and prolific contributor of both fiction and non-fiction to many Western pulps. She was also a writer and specialized in Western romances, with dozens of her stories appearing during the Thirties, Forties, and Fifties, mostly in RANCH ROMANCES but also in a few of the other Western romance pulps. Her novella “Misdeal” was the lead story in the Second February Number, 1944 issue of RANCH ROMANCES and has been reprinted by Buckskin Editions Westerns as an e-book under the title HEART’S MISDEAL. Being in the mood to read a Western romance, I gave the e-book a try, and I’m glad I did.

Walt Carmack is a young cowboy who lives with his widowed mother on the ranch owned by his grandfather. The spread will be Walt’s someday, and that doesn’t sit well with the ranch’s foreman, whose good-looking blond daughter is being courted by another of the crew, Billy Gamel, who is Walt’s best friend.

Then beautiful, petite brunette Lucy McAdams shows up on the ranch, hired to tutor the foreman’s younger children. Walt is interested in her, but a former beau of hers has followed her all the way to New Mexico and wants to win her back. Also, Lucy makes it clear pretty quickly that she’s not interested in Walt.

Now, you might think that with a setup like this, the story would be mostly arguing and making up—but you’d be wrong. We get a little of that, to be sure, but along the way there’s a bushwhacking, a murdered cowboy, a disappearance and maybe another murder, a couple of fistfights, a few chases, and a final shootout. Mind you, the action scenes aren’t as wild and over-the-top as you’d find in a story by, say, Leslie Scott, but they’re definitely there.

And Barker has a sure hand with characterization and writes very well, so the romantic scenes go down easily, too. This is a top-notch yarn that I whipped through and thoroughly enjoyed. Yes, the real bad guy who’s behind all the villainy might as well be wearing a neon sign on his back, but that didn’t bother me. You have to expect that sort of thing in pulp stories.

I’ve read only one other story by Elsa Barker, and I liked it, too. I definitely need to read more by her. I think HEART’S MISDEAL is the only thing of hers that’s currently in print, so I’ll have to look through my issues of RANCH ROMANCES. If you’ve never read anything from the Western romance pulps, this novella would be a fine place to start.