Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Texas Rangers, October 1954

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. The art is by Sam Cherry, as usual during this era of TEXAS RANGERS. What’s a little unusual is that it depicts a scene in the issue’s lead novel, which didn’t happen often on the covers of Western pulps. I don’t know if Cherry actually read this issue’s Jim Hatfield novel or the editor or art director told him about the scene, but either way, it’s quite effective.

That lead novel, “The Deepest Grave”, is a good one, too. Texas Ranger Jim Hatfield is sent to the Big Bend area of Texas to investigate the disappearance of a young Ranger assigned to uncover the thieves behind a high-grading scheme at a gold mine. The trail leads Hatfield to the mining boomtown of LaPlata, but only after he’s ambushed and suffers an arm wound, an injury that bothers him for the remainder of this novel, which is also an unusual touch. The story barrels along with almost non-stop action and features some suspenseful scenes in a mine shaft hundreds of feet under the ground. According to the Fictionmags Index, the author of this yarn is Walker A. Tompkins, and while it’s sometimes difficult to tell the difference between the Hatfield novels by Tompkins and the ones penned by Peter Germano, I agree that this one certainly reads like Tompkins’ work. It’s a really solid, enjoyable Jim Hatfield novel.

“Half a Solid Gold Mountain” isn’t exactly a comedy, but the first-person narration has a bit of a lighthearted touch about it that works pretty well. This tale of the dangerous encounter between a prospector and a gang of Mexican bandits along the border is by Frank Scott York. I don’t know anything about the author except that he wrote about three dozen Western and detective yarns for the pulps during the mid-Fifties. This one isn’t a lost gem, but it’s enjoyable.

I don’t know anything about H.G. Ashburn, either, except that he published about a dozen stories in various Western pulps during a short career in the mid-Fifties. His story “The Last Attack” in this issue is the first of those yarns. It’s a good story about a fast gun with a bad ticker and an unusual resolution to a gunfight. I liked it.

I’ve mentioned many times that I don’t care for the Jim Hatfield novels that Roe Richmond wrote under the Jackson Cole house-name. But in recent years, I’ve come to enjoy his stand-alone Western stories under his own name. His novelette in this issue, “Pretty Devil”, is really good. Two former Confederate officers, Sid Conister and Rip Razee, left homeless and broke by the war and Reconstruction, head west to Arizona Territory so Conister can claim part-ownership in a ranch, an interest he inherited from his late wife. When they get there, they find themselves immersed in troubles right out of a Southern Gothic: lurid secrets, hidden crimes, rampaging emotions. Richmond packs enough back-story and plot into this one that it could have been a full-length novel. And actually, it might have been better at that length with more room to develop the complicated story. As is, it’s still great fun to read, and I’ll definitely be on the lookout for more stories by Richmond.

“Fight or Drift” by Giles A. Lutz is a short story about a fiddle-playing drifter with a secret. Lutz was a consistently good writer and this excellent yarn manages to be both gritty and heartwarming.

I’ve also made a number of negative comments about the work of Ben Frank. I generally find his humorous Westerns, including his long-running Doc Swap series, rather unfunny. Even so, I always give his stories a try, and in “Not the Marrying Kind”, his contribution to this issue, he proves that he can write a lightweight but fairly straightforward Western yarn. It's the tale of a young rancher who has to contend not only with a pretty blonde who has her sights set on marrying him but also an escaped outlaw who blames our protagonist for him being captured and sent to prison in the first place. It’s cleverly plotted with Frank planting some stuff early in the story that pays off later and may well be the best thing I’ve read by Ben Frank.

Overall, this is an outstanding issue of TEXAS RANGERS with not a bad story in the bunch and a good Sam Cherry cover, to boot. If you have a copy on your shelves, it’s well worth reading.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Thrilling Western, July 1952

This is a pulp I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. The cover is credited on the Fictionmag Index to Sam Cherry, and after looking at the faces, I do believe it’s Cherry’s work, but it’s also kind of an atypical cover for him.

It's also a little unusual that the lead novella in this issue, featured on the cover, is a story by an author who had never appeared in the pulps before. In fact, “Blood on the Lode” is one of only two stories credited to James D. Pinkham in the FMI. A novelette by him appeared in MAX BRAND’S WESTERN MAGAZINE in 1953. I wondered briefly if the name was a pseudonym for a better-known Western writer, but I decided that probably wasn’t the case. Pinkham’s style is distinct enough that I don’t recall encountering it under any other name.

And it’s a maddeningly frustrating style, too. The story is one that hasn’t been done to death in Western pulp fiction and is reasonably accurate historically, too. In 1853, a pair of California Rangers are sent to a mining boomtown to clean up the lawlessness there. The heroes, Luke Corbin and the Alamo Kid, are Texans who rode with the Rangers there while Texas was a republic, and they’ve followed their old commander, Captain Harry Love, to California. So far, so good. Corbin and the Kid are fine protagonists. In their new job, they’re up against a crooked judge and a gambler/saloon owner who’s the mastermind of a gang of claim jumpers. Or is he? His beautiful, redheaded partner in the saloon is known as the Flame and has some secrets of her own. This is good stuff, and it’s done well in stretches with some great action scenes.

But then everything lurches to a halt as Pinkham spends several columns of dense prose summing up his character’s activities. Corbin wanders around talking endlessly to various characters, and Pinkham doesn’t even give us interesting dialogue, just dry recaps of what’s being discussed. Then we’re off again on another well-done ambush or shootout, but the previous scene has robbed the story almost completely of any momentum. He keeps up this pattern all the way through the story.

Despite those flaws, there’s enough to like in “Blood on the Lode” that I wish Pinkham had written more. He could have been a promising author.

I’ve never cared for Ben Frank’s work, although the readers must have because his Doc Swap series of humorous stories ran for a long time in TEXAS RANGERS. His story in this issue of THRILLING WESTERN is a stand-alone, “The Lucky Horseshoe Case”, in which a couple of cowpokes try to become private detectives. I told myself to give it a fair chance, but it’s just awful and I only made it through a couple of pages.

The “Man’s Business” referred to in Gile A. Lutz’s story of the same name is a gunfight between two ranchers over a waterhole. However, things don’t turn out as you might expect. This is a pretty minor story, but Lutz was a solid pro and makes it readable and entertaining.

“There’s Trouble in Hardpan” is the third Swap and Whopper story by Syl McDowell that I’ve read recently. This is another humorous series that I never liked, but for some unfathomable reason, I’ve started enjoying them. Tastes change, I guess. This novelette finds the two drifting protagonists running across an orchard in the middle of the desert and clashing with a cantankerous veterinarian. As always, it’s lightweight stuff, but it moves right along and is mildly amusing.

Steuart Emery wrote a lot of excellent cavalry stories for various Western pulps, most of them appearing in TEXAS RANGERS. But there’s one in this issue of THRILLING WESTERN called “Phantom Sabers”, and it’s the usual top-notch job from Emery. It features a clash between a bookish young lieutenant and an overbearing captain and winds up with a very clever twist when a patrol is surrounded and on the verge of being wiped out by Apaches. As far as I know, Emery never wrote any Western novels, which is a shame.

This issue wraps up with “Chalk Butte Conflict”, a novelette by Ben T. Young in which a Texas cowboy wins a Wyoming ranch in a poker game. He’s too fiddle-footed to settle down, so when he arrives in Wyoming, he plans to sell the spread as quickly as he can and move on. The foreman who works for the local cattle baron rubs him the wrong way, though, and the cattle baron has a beautiful daughter (what cattle baron doesn’t?), so our protagonist decides to stick around for a spell and trouble inevitably erupts. I don’t recall if I’ve ever read anything else by Young, who wrote around a hundred stories, mostly Westerns, during the Forties and early Fifties, but this is a very good story, told in an appealing breezy style, with a likable protagonist and plenty of action. It ends this issue on a high note.

So this issue of THRILLING WESTERN is a mixed bag with no truly outstanding stories but a couple of very good ones, several that are entertaining, and only one clear miss, as far as I’m concerned. It’s about as middle-of-the-road as you can find for a Western pulp, but I enjoyed reading it.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Short Stories, March 1957

A Western pulp from very late in the pulp era, but judging by the authors inside, this issue of WESTERN SHORT STORIES was still pretty good: H.A. DeRosso, S. Omar Barker, Edwin Booth, Clayton Fox, William Vance, and reprints by Tom W. Blackburn, D.B. Newton, John G. Pearsol, Giles A. Lutz, and Glenn H. Wichman. That's a fine bunch of Western pulpsters no matter what the era.

UPDATE: My friend Bob Deis has identified this cover artist as Jim Bentley and tells us that the cover was used originally on the January 1956 issue of MALE. Thanks, Bob.

 

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Novels and Short Stories, October 1947

There's almost enough happening on this cover that it reminds me of Norman Saunders' work, but it's not a Saunders cover. Even so, I like it quite a bit. No idea who did the art. Inside this issue of WESTERN NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES are stories by some good pulpsters, including Giles A. Lutz, Ray Gaulden, Nelson C. Nye, John H. Latham, and little-known Harry E. Baker, who published only a few stories. I can't say that any of those authors are actual favorites of mine, but I'll bet it's an entertaining issue anyway.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Lariat Story Magazine, January 1946

This issue of LARIAT STORY MAGAZINE came up in the comments on last Sunday's pulp post, as did the one I'll be posting tomorrow. This cover is by Fiction House stalwart Allen Anderson, although I don't think it's a typical Anderson cover. Still a pretty good one, though. Inside are stories by William Hopson, Giles A. Lutz, Lee E. Wells, Curtis Bishop, R.S. Lerch, and lesser-known authors John C. Ropke, Harold R. Stoakes, and Walter Galli.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Short Stories, June 1949

I like the cover on this issue of WESTERN SHORT STORIES, but what's really amazing is the group of authors inside: Walker A. Tompkins, Giles A. Lutz, D.B. Newton, Roe Richmond, Stephen Payne, Joseph Wayne (either Wayne D. Overholser or Overholser in collaboration with Lewis B. Patten), Joseph Payne Brennan, Frank P. Castle, John Callahan, John H. Latham, Clark Gray, house-name Ken Jason, and somebody named Costa Carousso, the only author in the bunch I haven't heard of. There are several of my favorites in there, and several more who were consistently good Western pulpsters.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Texas Rangers, September 1952

Art by Sam Cherry

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. The scan is of my copy. TEXAS RANGERS is one of my favorite pulps, and this is a good issue.

It leads off, as all issues of TEXAS RANGERS do, with a full-length novel featuring Texas Ranger Jim Hatfield. “Ranger’s Ransom” finds Hatfield, also known as the Lone Wolf, arriving in a West Texas cowtown to investigate the murder of a rancher who’s an old friend of his, only to find that he’s already been there. Or rather, somebody pretending to be Hatfield has been, and he’s made off with a vital piece of evidence in the case. That doesn’t stop Hatfield from launching his own investigation, which winds up with him being captured by the villains and held for ransom (hence the title). Hatfield, of course, still has some tricks up his sleeve and doesn’t intend to let the bad guys win.

This novel has long been attributed to Walker A. Tompkins, writing under the house-name Jackson Cole. However, now that I’ve read it, I’m not 100% convinced that it’s Tompkins’ work. The writing just doesn’t sound quite like Tompkins to me. It’s definitely not by Peter Germano or Roe Richmond, the other two principal authors on the Hatfield series at this point. Joseph Chadwick also write a few Hatfield novels right around this time, and “Ranger’s Ransom” has a hardboiled tone to it that makes me wonder if Chadwick actually wrote it. It does have the double initials in the title that Tompkins was fond of using, so that’s one point in his favor. But I doubt if I’ll ever know for sure, one way or the other. Anyway, what’s most important is that this is a very entertaining yarn with some good action scenes, and Hatfield’s boss, Ranger Captain “Roaring Bill” McDowell, gets to play a part in the action, which almost never happens in this series.

Thomas Calvert McClary was a prolific pulpster, producing hundreds of stories, mostly Westerns and detective yarns, from the early Thirties on through the end of the pulp era. And after that he contributed numerous stories to the mystery digests in the Fifties and Sixties. His story in this issue, “Long Live the King”, under the name T.C. McClary, is about an outlaw gang on the run and their leader, Tom King, weary of the owlhoot life and wanting to leave it behind. That doesn’t set well with some of the others in the gang and leads to a showdown that also involves a young lawman. This story is predictable and even a little melodramatic, but McClary does a really good job with it, including the epic gun battle that wraps it up.

I’ve mentioned before that I don’t care much for Ben Frank’s long-running Doc Swap series of comedy Westerns, but I read the one in this issue, “Doc Swap’s Reversible Wrangle”, and actually enjoyed it. The series if very formulaic—"Doc Swap is an irascible old geezer who swaps for stuff he wants, and hijinks ensue” is the plot of every one I’ve read—but I guess if you space them out long enough in between, they can be kind of entertaining. Ben Frank, who also wrote under his real name, Frank Bennett, turned out some pretty smooth prose, I’ll give him that.

H.A. DeRosso is another favorite of mine, the author of some of the bleakest Westerns you’ll find. His story in this issue, “For Love or Money”, isn’t as dark as some of his work that I’ve read, but it’s still a compelling yarn about a man whose former partner steals his woman, his ranch, and all his money. So naturally, he’s out for revenge. But not everything is as it seems, and while the twist isn’t very surprising, DeRosso handles it fairly well. This is minor DeRosso but worth reading.

Steuart Emery is another author whose career lasted a long time, all the way from 1919 to 1970. Early on, he wrote almost exclusively for the aviation and air war pulps but eventually came to specialize in Westerns about the U.S. Cavalry. His novelette in this issue, “Manhunt in the Sun”, is about a cavalryman serving in the army under a fake name because he’s wanted for murder. His past is about to catch up to him when he finds himself in the middle of a war with the Apaches and has to decide where his true loyalties lie. This is a superb story told in a gritty, fast-moving style, and it includes a scene most definitely inspired by one of my favorite films, GUNGA DIN. Everything I’ve read by Steuart Emery has been top-notch, and this continues that streak.

Giles A. Lutz was a productive, well-respected Western novelist for many years who started out writing for the pulps. His story here, “Best Man”, is about a romantic triangle, a windmill, and a blue norther. It’s slight but likable.

The same is true of “One Man’s Law”, by yet another veteran pulpster who wrote a lot for the aviation pulps, Robert Sidney Bowen. It concerns a lawman whose search for a murderer takes him back to his old hometown, which he left under less than ideal circumstances, so the protagonist has to face his past as well as corral a killer. Bowen was enough of an old pro to make it slick and entertaining.

This issue also includes several features, among them “Sagebrush Savvy”, a question-and-answer column written by S. Omar Barker, which was the only one that interested me. Barker is always worth reading.

Overall, this is a very solid issue of TEXAS RANGERS, with a good Jim Hatfield novel, Steuart Emery’s excellent novelette, and a variety of other stories that range from very good to okay. There’s not really a weak one in the bunch. If you’re a fan of this pulp and have a copy of this one you haven’t read yet, it’s well worth pulling down from the shelf.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Short Stories, July 1953

The cover on this issue of WESTERN SHORT STORIES combines two of my favorite elements for Western pulp covers, a gunfight and a train. And a pretty girl, so I guess it's actually three of my favorite Western pulp cover elements. And it's by Norman Saunders, so, well, there you go. No wonder I like it. Inside are some top-notch authors, such as Noel Loomis, Will C. Brown, Giles Lutz, Lauran Paine, Arthur J. Burks, and Walt Sheldon, along with a few little-known authors such as Dev Klapp and Orville G. Hextell.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Thrilling Ranch Stories, July 1948

One of the things I really like about Western pulp covers is that while there are plenty of "damsel in distress" type covers, there are also a lot that feature women who are just as tough and competent as the men. This cover by Sam Cherry from the July 1948 issue of THRILLING RANCH STORIES is a good example. There's not even a guy in sight, other than the hand of the one holding the gun, and that blonde is about to make him wish their trails had never crossed. Inside this issue are stories by some fine writers: L.P. Holmes, Giles A. Lutz, Stephen Payne, Samuel Mines, Joe Archibald, Cliff Walters, and Gladwell Richardson. The so-called Western romance pulps had plenty to like for traditional Western readers.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Speed Western, January 1948

Nice cover by the great H.W. Scott on this issue of SPEED WESTERN, and inside there's a very strong group of writers including Wayne D. Overholser, Walker A. Tompkins, Giles A. Lutz, Frank C. Robertson, and John Jo Carpenter (John Reese). If that's a salvage market pulp, I'll take it.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Novels and Short Stories, June 1951

A great Norman Saunders cover and stories by H.A. DeRosso, Giles A. Lutz, Frank Castle, and Roe Richmond. It may have been late in the pulp era, and WESTERN NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES may have been considered a salvage market, but this looks like a knockout issue anyway.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Fifteen Western Tales,June 1946

I like this cover! Busting into a saloon on horseback with guns blazing! That's my kind of Western pulp. Lots of good authors in this issue of FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES: Walker A. Tompkins, Joseph Chadwick, Giles A. Lutz, Walt Sheldon, Lee E. Wells, Rod Patterson, Thomas Thompson, Art Lawson, and more. I like that title, too: "Texans Don't Eat Crow!" Damn straight.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Novels and Short Stories, January 1950

WESTERN NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES was a pretty good Western pulp. This one has a nice action cover and stories by Matt Stuart (who was really one of my favorites, L.P. Holmes), Philip Ketchum, H.A. De Rosso, Giles A. Lutz, and Frank Castle. That's a solid group of writers.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: 10 Story Western, January 1948

One of those "telephone" covers you see now and then on a Western pulp. The conversations never seem to be peaceful. They're always interrupted by a gunfight. 10 STORY WESTERN was a consistently entertaining pulp. This issue features stories by Tom W. Blackburn, Giles A. Lutz, Richard Brister, Art Lawson, and several other authors I'm not familiar with. I've seen Branch Carter's name on covers before but don't recall ever reading anything by him. I like the name of his series character, though: Johnny Hardluck. I'll bet the stories are pretty good, too.