This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my taped, trimmed, and tattered copy in the scan, but other than being beat up, it’s intact and fully readable. The cover art is by Sam Cherry, as usual during this era of TEXAS RANGERS. It’s not one of his better covers, in my opinion, but it’s certainly not bad. I don’t think Cherry was capable of painting a bad cover.
The Jim Hatfield novel in this issue, “El Diablo’s Treasure”, is by Roe Richmond. I’ve mentioned many times in the past that Richmond’s Hatfield novels aren’t really to my taste, but I read one now and then anyway because he was a pretty good writer otherwise. This one starts out very promising. Hatfield is in Del Rio, on the Texas-Mexico border, and is already in the middle of his current assignment. He’s supposed to accompany a famous archeologist, the man’s beautiful daughter, and a young mining engineer who’s engaged to the girl, as they search for a famous lost mine in the Sierra Madre of Mexico. Not only is there the potential for gold, but the mine also is supposed to be the hiding place for a fortune in gems left there a couple of hundred years earlier.
Unfortunately, the arrangement with Mexico calls for the party to be escorted by a troop of Rurales commanded by an officer who is actually little more than a bandit, and there’s a gang of actual bandits roaming the area where the search is to take place. Throw in the fact that the archeologist’s daughter is a beautiful hellcat with her eye on Hatfield, angering her fiancée, and there’s plenty going on to wind up with Hatfield getting plenty of trouble heaped on his head.
That’s exactly what happens, as Richmond provides plenty of gritty, well-written fistfights, shootouts, and even some epic battles. There’s quite a bit to like in this novel. However, Richmond makes a serious misstep by never providing any sort of interesting backstory for the fortune that’s supposed to be hidden in the mine. It’s just sort of there, with a couple of vague hints that maybe the Conquistadores left it. There’s also no mention of anyone known as El Diablo, let alone an explanation of why it’s his treasure. Was Richmond simply referring to the Devil? Who knows?
My main objection to Richmond’s Hatfield novels is the presence of the annoying sidekicks he introduced to the series. Hatfield is called the Lone Wolf for a reason! Thankfully, although those characters are mentioned once, they play no part in this novel.
Ultimately, “El Diablo’s Treasure” isn’t a bad yarn. But Richmond shares something with Joseph Chadwick: he just doesn’t have a feel for the Jim Hatfield character. Hatfield never really seems like the same person who’s in the novels by Leslie Scott, Tom Curry, Walker Tompkins, and Peter Germano. If this had been a stand-alone with a totally different Texas Ranger, it would have been a better story. As is, it’s worth reading but not a great example of the series.
“War Bonnets in Wyoming” is a cavalry yarn by Gordon D. Shirreffs, one of the best all-around Western writers who was especially good in the cavalry sub-genre. In this one, the captain who’s in charge of establishing a new fort saves the life of a young Shoshone brave who’s being pursued by hostile Arapahoes. Will this be enough to save the lives of the captain, an Indian agent’s beautiful daughter, and a troop of cavalry later on? I think we know the answer to that, but Shirreffs is such a good writer it doesn’t matter. This story doesn’t have a lot of action, but it’s very suspenseful and I enjoyed it.
Harry Harrison Kroll isn’t somebody I think of as a Western writer. He wrote non-fiction about folklore and Americana, and his fiction is usually of the backwoods, hillbilly variety. But he made a few appearances in Western pulps, including the story “Catchers is Keepers” in this issue. It’s not actually a Western, though. It’s about a riverman on the Mississippi who finds a valuable raft and tries to salvage it, only to end up with trouble and a beautiful girl (but I repeat myself). Out of place though it may be, this is a fairly entertaining story.
Frank Castle got his start in the business assisting and ghosting for Western author Tom W. Blackburn, then went on to write dozens of stories under his own name for the Western pulps in the late Forties through the mid-Fifties. After that he became one of the most reliable novelists in the business, turning out books by the score: Westerns, hardboiled crime, nurse novels, soft-core novels, movie novelizations, and a lot of juvenile TV tie-in novels for Whitman under the name Cole Fannin. I’ve always thought Cole Fannin would have been a great Western pseudonym, but Castle chose to use Steve Thurman instead for the Westerns he didn’t publish under his real name. He also wrote some of the Lassiter novels under the house-name Jack Slade. I really like his work, so I was glad to see that he has a novelette in this issue called “Wild Night in Dodge”.
And a wild night it is. Dodge City is past its hell-raising peak since the railhead has long since moved on westward, but plenty of trouble is lurking there anyway for Kelly Shannon, who brings in a herd from Colorado. Before you know it, he’s met a beautiful redhead who looks just like a long-dead lover of his from Texas, he’s been accused of cheating at cards, he’s been blackjacked and knocked out, and he’s had ten thousand dollars stolen from him. And that’s just the start of a night full of fights, shootouts, double-crosses, and nefarious plans.
This is a terrific story, a 1950s Gold Medal Western novel in miniature. It’s got a hardboiled hero, a beautiful girl, and despicable villains everywhere Kelly Shannon turns. Frank Castle developed a very distinctive style that makes his later novels easy to identify, but it’s just in the formative stages here. The story races along and comes to a satisfying conclusion, and it just makes me want to read more by Castle.
“Bedlam on the Box X” is by Ben Frank, the author of the Doc Swap series and a writer whose work I’ve grown to heartily dislike. This isn’t a Doc Swap story, so I had a little hope for it, but it’s the same sort of cutesy, allegedly humorous story and I gave up on it after a few pages. Ben Frank just isn’t for me, and I think I’m going to stop trying to read his stories. (I felt the same way about Syl McDowell’s Swap and Whopper series and finally warmed up to it, but I don’t believe it’s going to happen with Ben Frank.)
I don’t know a thing about Garold Hartsock except that he published a couple of dozen stories, mostly Westerns and a few detective stories, in the pulps during the Forties and Fifties. His story “Feud” in this issue is a grim tale about feuding families in Oregon and includes a stereotypical Romeo-and-Juliet element. Hartsock’s writing is pretty good, though, and he kept me turning the pages to the end, which was a major letdown. So, not bad, but not particularly good, either.
And that’s a pretty accurate description of this issue of TEXAS RANGERS, too. The Frank Castle novelette is superb, and the Shirreffs cavalry yarn is very good and well worth reading, too. The Hatfield novel is okay if you’re not expecting too much but frustrating in that it could have been much better, although if you just want to sample one of Richmond’s novels, this would be a good pick because the sidekicks aren’t in it. Otherwise, I’d say that if you own this one, read Castle and Shirreffs and skip the rest.
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