Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Trails, May 1947

I don’t own this pulp, but I was able to read a PDF of it thanks to a friend of mine. Since I don’t have the actual issue, that’s the scan from the Fictionmags Index. The art is by Allen Anderson, whose work I associate much more with the Fiction House pulps, and it doesn’t really have his distinctive look. The Ace Western pulps, WESTERN TRAILS and WESTERN ACES, were sometimes considered salvage markets when a writer couldn’t sell a story elsewhere, but I haven’t really seen much evidence of that. I’ve found them to be pretty solid magazines with plenty of good authors on hand.

And certainly they weren’t considered salvage markets by veteran Western pulpster J. Edward Leithead, who had at least two stories in nearly every issue of those two pulps during the Forties, one under his own name and one under his most common pseudonym, Wilson L. Covert. I’m confident he wrote these specifically for the Ace pulps and never sent them anywhere else.

The story under Leithead’s name was nearly always a novelette. In this issue, it’s “Roundup of the Plundering Shotwells”, about a family of owlhoots, a father and six sons, but the seventh son wants nothing to do with being an outlaw. In fact, he’s in love the local sheriff’s daughter. But a clash with another gang draws our protagonist into gun trouble anyway, and it’s a bloody, fast-moving tale with several good plot twists, plenty of action, and a satisfying showdown at the end. Leithead is one of my favorite Western pulp authors, and this is a really nice example of his work.

The short story “Blizzard Boomerang” is by another of my favorites, Joseph Chadwick. It’s a little unusual for him in that it’s set in the snowy High Sierras during winter instead of somewhere in the hot Southwest, where his stories are usually set. It’s not a typical plot, either, as it’s about the clash between two men who deliver mail and freight to the remote mining camps, one by dogsled and the other on skis. This is a well-written, emotionally involving story, as you’d expect from Chadwick.

Kenneth L. Sinclair was a fairly popular Western pulp author but is forgotten today. His story, “Trail of the Invisible Herd”, is another story set during the winter and involves getting a herd to some grazing land even though the local range hog has blocked it off with a fence. This one is okay, reasonably entertaining, but the resolution of it seems pretty far-fetched to me. Maybe it’s not, Sinclair may know what he’s talking about, but I wasn’t convinced.

Frank Triem published dozens of Western pulp stories during the Twenties, Thirties, and Forties but is probably even more unknown today than Kenneth L. Sinclair. His story in this issue, “Say It With Sixes”, is about a young lawman waiting nervously for the return of an outlaw he knows is going to try to kill him. Hmm, that sounds vaguely familiar. But here’s the interesting thing. This issue of WESTERN TRAILS was published six months earlier than the issue of COLLIER’S that contained John M. Cunningham’s story “The Tin Star”, from which the movie HIGH NOON was made. The similarities are definitely there. Given the timing, I really don’t think Cunningham took any inspiration from Triem’s story. I believe it’s a coincidence, but it’s a striking one.

J. Edward Leithead’s second story in this issue is “Calaboose Cache” under the Wilson L. Covert pseudonym. It’s about a cowboy who returns to his hometown and is forced by circumstances to become the local lawman. He has to deal with a deputy he doesn’t trust, two competing gangs of outlaws, and the missing loot from a bank robbery that has to be recovered to keep the town from being ruined. It’s a complex yarn and pretty entertaining, although I didn’t think it was as good as the novelette under Leithead’s real name.

D.B. Newton is another longtime favorite Western author for me. His stories are always well-plotted, have plenty of action and interesting characters, and his prose is clean and sounds authentic without going in for overdone dialect. His novelette “Cowpoke on a Pistol Payroll” is about a down-on-his-luck cowboy who finally gets a job, only to find that he’s the bait in a scheme to start a range war. This is an excellent story that’s almost all action. Really enjoyable.

I’ve found Giff Cheshire to be an inconsistent Western author, but most of his stories are pretty good and occasionally I run across one that’s excellent. “.45 Merrymaker” in this issue falls into the pretty good category. The protagonist is a young cowboy who plays the guitar and sings, and his friend is a bearded old-timer who plays the fiddle. I have no way of knowing if Cheshire intentionally based them on Roy Rogers and Gabby Hayes, but close enough for me! The plot is reminiscent of a B-Western, too, with a couple of swindlers out to bilk a town by promising to build a phony railroad. However, the way our heroes go about foiling that scheme requires a heapin’ helpin’ of willing suspension of disbelief, almost too much so. In the end, I cut Cheshire enough slack to enjoy the story.

“Four Horsemen From Hades” is a great title, and it goes with an entertaining story by Willard Luce, another forgotten pulpster who published 18 stories during the Forties and Fifties. An old-timer who works as the night watchman at a dam construction project in the Pacific Northwest has to solve a payroll theft in order to clear his son’s name. The plot is pretty easy to figure out, but Luce’s writing is smooth enough and his protagonist likable enough to elevate this one.

This is a good issue of WESTERN TRAILS, worth reading if you have a copy of the actual pulp. If you’re a member of the WesternPulps email group, you can find the PDF in the Files section of the group’s website.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Trails, February 1948

This issue of WESTERN TRAILS features another fine, dramatic cover by Norman Saunders. As usual with the Ace Western pulps, this issue has two stories by J. Edward Leithead, one under his own name and one under his most common pseudonym Wilson L. Covert. I'm a big fan of Leithead's work and there are some other fine authors in this issue, including Walker A. Tompkins, Joseph Chadwick, D.B. Newton, weird fiction icon Kirk Mashburn, Cliff Walters, and Dan Kirby. I don't own this issue and haven't read it, but with that cover and author line-up I have no doubt that it's very good.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Trails, April 1946

That's a nice cover by Albert Drake on this issue of WESTERN TRAILS. This issue has the usual two stories by J. Edward Leithead, one under his own name and one under his regular pseudonym Wilson L. Covert. Other authors on hand are Wayne D. Overholser, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), Cliff Walters, Ralph Yergen, and an author better known for his science fiction, Emil Petaja. The Leithead stories always made WESTERN TRAILS worth reading as far as I'm concerned.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Trails, July 1947

A nice cover by A. Leslie Ross on this issue of WESTERN TRAILS, and a pretty strong lineup of authors inside, too, including two of my favorites, L.P. Holmes and J. Edward Leithead (twice, once as himself and once as Wilson L. Covert). Others contributing stories are Joe Archibald, Nat McKelvey, Mel Holt, Art Kercheval, and Charles Irwin, not big name pulpsters (with the possible exception of Archibald) but solid writers.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Trails, July 1943

"Ranny on the Rampage" describes my state of mind fairly often, but in this case it's the title of a story by one of my favorite Western authors, J. Edward Leithead. As usual, Leithead has a second story in this issue of WESTERN TRAILS under his most-used pseudonym, Wilson L. Covert. Several other good authors are on hand, too: Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), C. William Harrison, Orlando Rigoni, and Glenn Shirley. I don't know who did the action-packed cover art, but I like it. Appears to be another good issue of this underrated Western pulp.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Aces, August 1946

The cover by Grant Hargis on this issue of WESTERN ACES makes me want to write a story based on it, but I feel that way about a lot of Western pulp covers. The featured story is by J. Edward Leithead, as it usually was during this era of WESTERN ACES, and also as usual, he had a second story in this issue under his Wilson L. Covert pseudonym. Other authors include Wayne D. Overholser, Giff Cheshire, and Glenn Low.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Trails, January 1942

This issue of WESTERN TRAILS sports a Norman Saunders cover, and it's great as usual, packed with dynamic action. There are some fine authors inside, too, with J. Edward Leithead leading off with the evocatively titled novella "Haunted by a Pistol Past". As I've mentioned many times before, Leithead is one of my favorite Western pulp authors. Scores of his stories appeared in WESTERN TRAILS and its sister publication WESTERN ACES, as well as in numerous other Western pulps. Also on hand are Wyatt Blassingame writing as Van Cort, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), and Tom J. Hopkins, as well as some lesser-known pulpsters such as Hyatt Manderson and Raymond W. Porter.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Aces, April 1943

This issue of WESTERN ACES sports an action-packed cover by Allen Anderson, an artist usually more associated with Fiction House pulps, instead of Ace. But it's a good one, and I like it. J. Edward Leithead has only one story in this issue, the lead novelette, which is kind of unusual because he often had two stories in an issue of WESTERN ACES, one of them under his Wilson L. Covert pseudonym. In my experience, Leithead is always worth reading, no matter what the by-line, and I love the title "Trail of the Hoodooed Herd". Also in this issue are stories by another favorite of mine, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), Lee E. Wells, Joe Austell Small, Stephen Payne, Orlando Rigoni, R.S. Lerch, and none other than Leslie Reasoner, no relation to me but the only Reasoner to get his name in a pulp magazine, as far as I know. (And technically, we are related, I suppose, because all the Reasoners can trace their ancestry back to one guy who came to this country in the early 1700s. But I digress . . .)

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Aces, January 1948

Another fine Norman Saunders cover (is there any other kind?) on this issue of WESTERN ACES, and a pretty solid line-up of authors inside, as well. There are the usual two stories by J. Edward Leithead, one under his name and one as by Wilson L. Covert, plus stories by two more of my favorites, Walker A. Tompkins and Gunnison Steele, real name Bennie Gardner. The cover-featured story is by Glenn Low, who published quite a few stories in the Western pulps during the Forties, then went on to write soft-core novels for Beacon Books and Novel Books, the only one of which I've read, THE BARN, was pretty good.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Aces, November 1945

Well, artist Albert Drake has certainly put his hero and heroine in quite a predicament on the cover of this issue of WESTERN ACES. I'm sure they'll get out of it, though. Inside this issue are stories by one of my favorites, J. Edward Leithead (one under his own name and one under his pseudonym Wilson L. Covert), Joe Archibald, Cliff Walters, Galen C. Colin, and others. I like that title, "Enough Rope for the Hangman".

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Aces, December 1940

Another fine-looking issue of WESTERN ACES, with a good cover and stories by L.P. Holmes, Walker A. Tompkins, Gunnison Steele, Barry Cord, Wilfred McCormick, and WESTERN ACES perennial J. Edward Leithead. Four of those authors, Leithead, Tompkins, Steele (Bennie Gardner), and Cord (Peter Germano) also wrote Jim Hatfield novels for TEXAS RANGERS as Jackson Cole.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Aces, November 1944

As I was saying a couple of weeks ago, stagecoach travel in the Old West must have been really dangerous, considering how many running gunfights they get into on the covers of Western pulps. Here's another example, this one painted by Ernest Chiriaka for WESTERN ACES. This issue has two stories by one of my favorite authors, J. Edward Leithead, one under his real name and one as by Wilson L. Covert, the pseudonym he used most often. Also in this issue are stories by veteran pulpsters Joseph Chadwick, Stephen Payne, Joe Archibald, David X. Manners, and Dupree Poe (writing as Roger Rhodes). I like the Ace Western pulps and always find them enjoyable.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Texas Rangers, August 1938

This is an excellent early issue of TEXAS RANGERS, with a Jim Hatfield novel by J. Edward Leithead, a Long Sam Littlejohn story by Lee Bond, and a story by Tom Gunn (probably Syl McDowell). Leithead wrote only three Hatfield novels, but they're all good.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Top Western Fiction Annual, 1954

You have to look close to see it, but there's a bullet going through this cowboy's hat, so this qualifies as an Injury to a Hat cover. Who's the artist? I don't know. The art reminds me a little of both H.W. Scott and A. Leslie Ross and might easily be neither of them. TOP WESTERN FICTION ANNUAL was a reprint pulp, as you might guess, and the 1954 edition has some fine authors in it: Allan R. Bosworth, William Hopson, J. Edward Leithead, Leslie Ernenwein, Larry A. Harris, W.F. Bragg, and the ubiquitous house-name Sam Brant. The stories come from a variety of Thrilling Group Western pulps published in the Thirties and Forties. Maybe not the very top Western fiction . . . but PRETTY DARNED GOOD WESTERN FICTION ANNUAL probably wouldn't have sold as well.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Trails, September 1942

Yesterday's Forgotten Book was a J. Edward Leithead paperback. Here's an issue of WESTERN TRAILS with a Leithead story cover featured, and a fine Norman Saunders cover, to boot! I love the title of the Leithead story: "Twin Triggers and a Crimson Legacy!" He was the most prolific contributor to WESTERN TRAILS and its companion magazine, WESTERN ACES, during the Forties, with at least one story in most issues and often two or three under pseudonyms. Other authors in this issue include L.P. Holmes, Orlando Rigoni (an author I've never read, despite seeing his name around for many, many years), and Ney N. Geer, who wrote quite a bit for WESTERN STORY.

Forgotten Books: Bloody Hoofs - J. Edward Leithead

This is Ace Double D-2, the second book in the famous, long-running series of Westerns, mysteries, and science fiction. Despite the fact that the copyright date is 1952 and the cover says "An ACE Original", I suspect it's a reprint of one of Leithead's pulp stories from the Twenties, when his work appeared regularly in ACE-HIGH and other pulps. The style is a little long-winded and formal in places, somewhat different than his work in the Thirties and Forties for RANCH ROMANCES, WESTERN ACES, WESTERN TRAILS, and assorted other Western titles. But it's still a fairly entertaining, fast-moving story.

Horse wrangler Bret Kane rides into West Texas carrying a dead man's saddle. The saddle belonged to rancher "One-Shot" Lowrie's prodigal son Bob. Bob Lowrie had become a tinhorn gambler after leaving home, and after being mortally wounded in a fight over a card game, Bob convinced one of the bystanders--Bret Kane--to return his saddle to the old man. What Kane doesn't know is that he is riding into a three-cornered range war between "One-Shot" Lowrie and neighboring ranchers Rufus Overholt and Jim Catlin.

That's pretty much the plot of the book. Kane throws in with Lowrie and helps him in his battle to save the Circle O ranch. There's a horse race, some double-crosses, and a lot of shootouts. No romance at all; in fact, the only female characters even mentioned are some anonymous saloon girls. What saves the book for me is Leithead's colorful way with an action scene and the sense that he's enjoying himself. Leithead did better work in some of his other stories, but this one is okay.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Trails, February 1935

This is a Western pulp that I own and read recently, so I can talk about the stories for a change. That's a cover scan from the actual copy I read, as well. Art by Delos Palmer Jr. Thanks to Bill Crider for sending this one to me.

This one leads off with a full-length "novel" (more of a novella, really) by Frederick C. Davis, best known as the creator and author of the novels in the Operator #5 series, as well as the Moon Man yarns from 10 DETECTIVE ACES. It's part of Davis's series about Duke Buckland, which ran for twenty stories in WESTERN TRAILS from 1934 to 1937. Buckland is a wanted outlaw who goes under the name Black Jack Spade, but he's really a good guy despite having the law after him. His young partner is Kit McCane. Buckland's trademark is leaving a jack of spades behind every time he kills a villain or eludes a sheriff, but in "Colt Queen", he and McCane run up against a female bandit calling herself the Queen of Spades who always leaves one of those behind as her calling card. She's really the beautiful but dangerous Dell Clanton, and she has reasons of her own for luring Buckland into a trap. I don't think Davis was quite as comfortable with Westerns as he was with the superspy sagas in OPERATOR #5—this yarn is a little repetitive in both plot and language—but there's plenty of nice action, Buckland and McCane are likable heroes, and Dell Clanton turns out to be a pretty interesting character. This is the only Duke Buckland story I've ever read, but I wouldn't hesitate to dive in to another one if I came across it.

"Maverick Law" is the first thing I've read by Francis P. Verzani, not a well-known Western pulp author at all, although he was fairly prolific in the early to mid-Thirties. This novelette combines a couple of familiar plots, the child-raised-by-outlaws story and the save-the-ranch story. It's told in a nice, breezy style and has plenty of action, but it's really predictable, has too much "yuh mangy polecat" dialect, and never rises above the level of just okay.

Clyde A. Warden is another writer whose work I haven't encountered until now. When I looked at the first page of "Double-Barreled Decoy", his novella in this issue, I got excited for a minute because under his byline it said "Author of Clan of the Coltmen". This caught my attention because "Coltmen" (or "Coltman") is an oddball word frequently used by one of my favorite Western pulp authors, J. Edward Leithead. I've seen it only one or two other times in stories by other authors. Also, the name Clyde A. Warden reminded me a little of Wilson L. Covert, Leithead's most common pseudonym. So I thought at first I might have uncovered another Leithead pen-name.

However, upon reading the story, I'm convinced that it's not by Leithead after all, and the mystery of who Clyde A. Warden really was remains. (Of course, he actually could have been Clyde A. Warden, whose byline appeared frequently in Western pulps for more than twenty years.) "Double-Barreled Decoy" is part of his long-running Bert Little series, which appeared in WESTERN TRAILS from 1930 to 1938, with at least 69 stories featuring the stalwart hero. Bert Little's background really isn't clear in this one, but it's obvious he's some sort of freelance good guy. At the request of a lawman friend, he takes on the job of bringing outlaw Harry Baxter to justice. That task is complicated by the presence of a beautiful young woman who may be Bert's best friend or his deadliest enemy, he's not sure which.

Unlike the Verzani story, "Double-Barreled Decoy" is written in clean, fast-moving prose with good action scenes and some emotional depth. The plot may be fairly standard stuff, but Warden does a fine job with it and left me thoroughly entertained. I'd definitely like to read more of his work.

"Branded in Lead" by the ubiquitous (at least in the Western pulps) Larry A. Harris is the story of a man who takes up the owlhoot trail when the girl he loves chooses his half-brother over him. This one has a lot of scope for a short story, covering almost a decade in time, and it's written in Harris's smooth prose, as usual. The ending is a little lacking, but overall I liked it.

Not surprisingly since it was written by James P. Olsen, another of my favorites, I thought the novelette "Trigger Tempest" was excellent. It's a cattlemen vs. sheepmen story, an ancient plot but well-handled by Olsen, even though the hero's name, Burnin' Cole, is a bit groan-inducing. Fine action scenes, though.

The last story in the issue is "Gun Smith of Tonca" by Joe Archibald, who wrote detective stories, aviation yarns, and sports stories in addition to a lot of Westerns. Since he was a veteran pulpster, you'd expect the prose to be smooth and readable, and it is. The plot, about the aftermath of a stagecoach robbery, is fairly complex for a short story, with a couple of nice twists. This is another entertaining tale.

All in all, this is a fine issue of WESTERN TRAILS, never one of the top pulps but a consistently good one. The stories range from fair to excellent, and I really enjoyed reading it.

UPDATE: Will Murray advises me that Clyde A. Warden was that author's real name. Thanks, Will! I need to find more of Warden's stories.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Trails, March 1947

J. Edward Leithead, one of my favorite Western pulp authors, had at least two stories in most issues of WESTERN TRAILS and WESTERN ACES during the second half of the 1940s, and that's true in this issue, where he appears under his own name and also under his most common pseudonym Wilson L. Covert. That would be enough to make me read this issue, but there are also stories by L.P. Holmes, Walker A. Tompkins, and Wayne D. Overholser. That's a really solid bunch of writers, with a cover by A. Leslie Ross, to boot. Looks like a fine issue to me.