Review: Ride for Vengeance - John Callahan (Joseph Chadwick)

Ed Cavanaugh is a down-on-his-luck rancher who leaves his spread in drought-ridden Texas to head for Arizona with his herd of cattle, hoping to make a new start there. But he’s still in New Mexico Territory, a long way from Arizona, when he runs smack-dab into a barbed wire fence holding his cattle off from water they desperately need. Cavanaugh is a law-abiding man and doesn’t want to cut the fence, but he may have to in order to save his livestock.

That’s how RIDE FOR VENGEANCE, a 1967 Ace Double Western by John Callahan (who was actually Joseph Chadwick) opens, and the author immediately enlists the reader’s sympathy for Ed Cavanaugh, who’s a fine protagonist, a decent man who can be plenty tough and hardboiled when he’s backed into a corner. And if there’s one thing Joseph Chadwick can do to his protagonists, it’s back them into a corner!

That’s what happens in RIDE FOR VENGEANCE as Cavanaugh finds himself in the middle of a range war between the big spread that’s fenced in its holdings and the smaller ranchers adjoining it, including a pretty widow whose husband was hanged by the cruel son of the big ranch’s manager. Cavanaugh is a widower himself and has a four-year-old son along on the trail drive with him, which is something of an unusual angle for a Western novel like this. In Chadwick’s hands, it works very well, though. There’s also a romantic triangle that’s well-handled, despite not really amounting to much, some colorful old-timers, a few hotheaded kids, a stampede, and several bushwhackings and fistfights.

In other words, this is a very traditional Western novel with nothing in it you haven’t read many times before and no surprises. And yet, Chadwick’s execution of the material is almost flawless. Even though I had a pretty good idea what was going to happen, I kept flipping the pages eagerly because I wanted to see it play out. If Westerns are your comfort reading, as they are for me, I think there’s a very good chance you’ll enjoy this one. I think it’s one of the best books I’ve read this year.

By the way, that's my copy in the scan above, and the cover art is by Harry Schaare. It's Ace G-682, with the novel BANDIT BRAND by Tom West (real name Fred East) on the other side. I'm pretty sure I'll be reading that one soon, too.

Battle at Rattlesnake Pass - Tom West (Fred East)

Tom West was actually an Englishman named Fred East who moved to the United States after being wounded in World War I, and after knocking around in various jobs, including journalism, he broke in as a Western novelist in the early 1940s, publishing books under the Tom West name as well as the pseudonym Roy Manning. He also wrote several novels under the Peter Field house-name in the Powder Valley series. I’ve found his work to be a little inconsistent, but generally I like his books quite a bit and really ought to read more of them. Here’s an excellent blog post about him with reviews of some of his books.

Many of the Tom West books were published originally as half of Ace Double Westerns. BATTLE AT RATTLESNAKE PASS was published in 1965 with TRAIL OF THE VANISHING RANCHERS by Stephen Payne on the other side of Ace Double M-124. It was reprinted by Ace sometime in the Seventies by itself, and that’s the edition I read recently. That’s my copy in the scan at the top of this post.

As this novel opens, hardbitten young cowboy and ex-convict Mike O’Brien is on a stagecoach heading back to his hometown in Arizona. He’s just served five years in Yuma Territorial Prison for shooting (but not killing) the man who killed his father in a shootout. O’Brien’s father was a hardscrabble rancher suspected of being a rustler, and he was gunned by the foreman of a rival cattleman after being caught with some cattle with blotted brands. Of course, O’Brien believes his father was framed. He intends to go back and take over the family ranch, but he knows everybody in the valley hates him and will try to run him out. On the stagecoach, he meets a beautiful young blonde, but he discovers that she’s the daughter of a sheepherder who’s trying to extend his grazing land.

Not surprisingly, trouble comes at O’Brien from all sides, and his only ally is a crippled gunfighter he befriends. He winds up being framed not only as a rustler but also as a murderer and has to go on the run to try to clear his name and uncover the mastermind behind all the trouble plaguing the valley.

As you can tell, the basic plot of this novel is pretty standard stuff, but West takes it in directions that I didn’t really expect. Honestly, I didn’t know what was going to happen or who the real villain was until the end, and that’s very unusual. There’s a lot of great action along the way, some humor, and colorful characters who speak in colorful dialogue that never quite reaches “Why, yuh mangy polecat!” levels. Mike O’Brien is a good protagonist, stubborn as all get-out, not quite likable some of the time, but always sympathetic.

Now, this is a book that sure could have used some better editing. There are quite a few typos, some awkward writing that could have been fixed pretty easily, and despite the title, there is no Rattlesnake Pass in this book. The only pass that’s ever mentioned is Sidewinder Pass. Somebody should have done something about that.

All that said, I really enjoyed BATTLE AT RATTLESNAKE PASS. It’s just a good, old-fashioned action Western, the kind of book I never tire of. I had a fine time reading it and I’m glad I have quite a few more Tom West books on my shelves. I need to get to some of them soon.