This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. I’m not sure who did the cover. There’s a signature in the lower left corner that seems to match the signature of an obscure artist named J.G. Hame, whose only credit in the Fictionmags Index is the cover on the November 10, 1950 issue of RANCH ROMANCES. I can’t find anything online about Hame. Maybe some of you know more.
The lead novella in this issue is
almost long enough to be considered an actual novel. “Boom-Town
Bonanza” (no hyphen on the cover, but it’s there in the TOC and
the text) is by Ray Townsend, a dependably entertaining Western pulp
author. As you’d expect from the title, it’s a mining yarn. In
the early days after the Civil War, ex-Confederate Jim Sheldon comes
to Nevada in answer to a summons from his old friend who has found a
profitable silver claim. But no sooner does Jim arrive than his
friend is gunned down and he finds himself involved in a war between
the two big mine owners (one of whom is a beautiful woman) and the
owners of the smaller mines (one of whom has a beautiful daughter).
It’s basically a range war story, only with mines instead of
cattle, and not surprisingly, Townsend does a good job with it. His
characters are well-drawn, as is the setting, and the action scenes
are excellent. My only complaint is that some aspects of the plot
seem to be glossed over rather quickly, as if Townsend had trouble
fitting everything into 35,000 words. Townsend’s career was short,
only about eight years, but in that time he produced nearly 100 pulp
stories and four novels. I plan to read more by him.
I don’t
know anything about Don Peterson except that he published two Western
stories and had one story in WEIRD TALES, all in the early Fifties.
His story in this issue, “Cradled in Hell”, is a really bleak
yarn about a stagecoach shotgun guard captured by a gang of Mexican
bandits. It’s fairly well-written and it doesn’t end the way I
expected it to (always a plus), but it’s so dark I found it more
admirable than enjoyable.
“Land of No Surrender” is the
only credit for Ray Conley in the Fictionmags Index. I don’t know
if that name is a pseudonym or if this is the only story he ever
sold. It’s about a crippled Pawnee warrior who seeks redemption and
acceptance in a battle against the Sioux. A little on the predictable
side, but not a bad story.
Ben Smith’s name is familiar to
me mostly from the Western novels he wrote for Ace and Bantam, but he
also wrote several dozen stories for the Western pulps in the Forties
and Fifties. His novelette in this issue, “Bridge of the Eagle”,
is the first thing by him that I’ve read, as far as I remember. In
it, drifting cowpoke Johnny Quinn is in Arizona Territory when he
gets his horse stolen from him and then a short time later is
arrested for holding up a stagecoach and killing the guard. He winds
up escaping from jail with a hardened killer who’s on his way to
join a gang holed up in an isolated stronghold in the mountains along
the border. It’s a colorful, fast-moving yarn, and Smith manages to
tie up the various threads of the plot in a way that makes sense. I
enjoyed it enough that it made me want to dig out more of Smith’s
work. I know I have an Ace Double around here somewhere with half of
it by him . . .
“Mama Rides the Norther” is by one of my
favorite Western authors, Lewis B. Patten, but it’s not a typical
Patten story with noir elements. Instead it’s more of a homespun
frontier drama about a married couple and their two young children
who leave a life in the city to establish a homestead on the Great
Plains. It’s well-written and somewhat suspenseful when a blizzard
blows in, but overall a pretty minor entry considering the
author.
The issue wraps up with “Turn Home Again”, a short
story by J.L. Bouma about a dissatisfied young farm boy who wants to
leave home . . . until he has an encounter with an outlaw on the run
and a posse. Bouma had a long, prolific career writing for the pulps
and as a Western paperbacker, as well as writing other types of
novels. I’ve always found his work to be dependably good without
being outstanding. That’s the case with this story, which is
enjoyable to read and comes to a satisfactory conclusion. I doubt if
it’ll be very memorable, though.
Overall, this is about as
middle-of-the-road an issue of a Western pulp as you’ll ever find,
good but not great stories, but no stinkers, either. It’s worth
reading if you have a copy, especially the Townsend and Smith
stories.
