Review: Buzzards Fer Thanksgivin' - Cleve Endicott (Norman W. Hay) (Wild West Weekly, November 28, 1936)

I came across this issue of WILD WEST WEEKLY on the Internet Archive, and since it features a novelette with the great title “Buzzards Fer Thanksgivin’”, I decided to go ahead and read that yarn so I could post about it today. It’s the November 28, 1936 issue, and the cover is by R.G. Harris. I’ll read the rest of it and feature it as a Saturday Morning Western Pulp in a week or two.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Billy West/Circle J series in WILD WEST WEEKLY, it was the most prolific Western pulp series with more than 400 entries between 1927 and 1943, written by at least 15 different authors under the house-name Cleve Endicott. The protagonist is Billy West, the young owner of the Circle J cattle ranch in Montana’s Bitterroot Mountains, along with his sidekicks, the colorful, grizzled old-timer Buck Foster and feisty, redheaded Joe Scott.

In “Buzzards Fer Thanksgivin’”, it’s the day before the holiday and the Circle J’s Chinese cook Sing Lo is on his way back to the ranch with a buckboard full of supplies for the Thanksgiving feast when he interrupts a stagecoach robbery and is taken prisoner by the outlaws. Meanwhile, in town, Buck Foster competes in a turkey shoot to win a prize gobbler and runs afoul of some other hardcases. Unknown to any of our heroes, these two circumstances are connected and will soon lead them into a whirlwind of action.

In fact, this story is almost all action, but it’s well-written and Billy, Buck, Joe, and Sing Lo are very likable protagonists. Despite the thin plot, I found it to be a very enjoyable yarn. The actual author is Norman W. Hay, who wrote more of the Circle J stories than anyone else. If you’re a Western pulp fan and need something to do after your nap this afternoon (I assume everyone takes a nap on Thanksgiving, like I do), I can recommend reading “Buzzards Fer Thanksgivin’”.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Wild West Weekly, July 18, 1936

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. The excellent cover by R.G. Harris illustrates a scene from the lead novelette by Walker A. Tompkins, “Tommy Rockford’s Coffin Clew”.

In this installment of Tompkins’ long-running series about the young railroad detective who carries a pair of gold-plated handcuffs, Rockford arrives in an isolated Arizona settlement on a stormy night in pursuit of a notorious train robber. However, when he gets there he discovers that his quarry has already been brought to justice, drilled in a gunfight with the local sheriff. Then the sheriff himself turns up dead, and Tommy has to solve his murder. This is one of those stories where the big plot twist is pretty obvious, but that doesn’t stop Tompkins from spinning it into a very entertaining yarn with his usual skill. I was a little disappointed in the last Tommy Rockford story I read, but not this one. It’s well-written, atmospheric, and suspenseful. Also, I didn’t figure out the “coffin clew” of the title, so that’s one final surprise Tompkins saves for the story’s last paragraph. Fine work in this one.

Hal Davenport wrote a lot of stories under the various WILD WEST WEEKLY house-names, including more than 20 novelettes in the Billy West and Circle J series as Cleve Endicott. His story in this issue, “Six-guns Say No”, is a stand-alone published under his own name. It’s a range war yarn as a young rancher fights to defend the waterhole on which his spread depends from a bunch of no-good crooks trying to steal it. This story is almost all action, and while there’s nothing in it we haven’t seen many, many times before, Davenport does a good job of storytelling and comes up with an entertaining tale.

Samuel H. Nickels also wrote prolifically under house-names for WILD WEST WEEKLY, but under his own name he authored almost 140 short stories about a pair of young Texas Rangers named “Hungry” Hawkins and “Rusty” Bolivar. In this issue’s Hungry and Rusty yarn, “Rangers’ Rescue”, our intrepid pair set out to find a rancher’s son who’s been kidnapped by outlaws. This is another tale that’s almost all action. This is the first Hungry and Rusty story I’ve read. I enjoyed it and found them a very likable pair of protagonists. Definitely wouldn’t mind reading more of these.

Guy L. Maynard was another regular house-name scribe but also wrote several popular series under his own name, the longest-running of which featured a character called Señor Red Mask. He wrote a dozen stories featuring a redheaded cowboy, trail driver, and adventurer known as Flame Burns. Some legendary historical Old West characters appeared in these as well, much like the Rio Kid series. In this issue’s novelette, “Death Riders of Dodge”, Flame is in Dodge City, having just delivered a herd of cattle he brought up the trail from Texas. He’s set upon by outlaws and robbed of the payoff for that herd, and the rest of the story concerns his efforts to get the money back and avenge the death of a friend in a shootout. He gets some help in this from none other than Calamity Jane, who bears only a passing resemblance to the historical Calamity Jane. There’s one mention of her nursing the sick during an epidemic, and other than that she’s strictly the fictional version that’s shown up in so many movies, TV shows, and novels. This is the first thing I’ve read by Maynard, as far as I know, and when I read it, I wasn’t very impressed by it. It seemed a little too simple and juvenile. It’s sticking with me more than I expected, though. I’ll have to read more by Maynard to form a worthwhile opinion of his work.

“King of Colts” is by Charles M. Martin, who sometimes wrote as Chuck Martin. It’s a vengeance yarn, as a young rancher sets out after the three outlaws responsible for the death of the grandfather who raised him. That’s all there is to it, but Martin writes in a terse style that I enjoy, and since he was an actual cowboy, like Walt Coburn, his work has a strong sense of authenticity. Also like Coburn, Martin wound up taking his own life by hanging, which is a shame. He was a pretty darned good writer.

There are some assorted features and one other piece of fiction in this issue, the novelette “Whizz Fargo Springs a Murder Trap” by George C. Henderson. This is one of six linked novelettes about Whizz Fargo that were fixed up into the novel WHIZZ FARGO, GUNFIGHTER. I happen to own a copy of that novel, so I skipped the story in this issue, preferring to read it in the novel version. Which I’ll get around to soon, I hope. I’ve read some stories by Henderson in the past and enjoyed them, as far as I recall.

Overall, this is a good but not great issue of WILD WEST WEEKLY. Tompkins’ Tommy Rockford story is definitely the highlight. The other stories are all perfectly readable and entertaining, but they didn’t really make a strong impression on me. Having said that, I’m glad I read it and believe it’s worth your time if you happen to own a copy of it.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Thrilling Western, August 1935

I think that's a roulette wheel behind the cowboy in this cover by R.G. Harris, adding to our list of unsafe activities in the Old West. I've heard of losing your shirt while gambling, but I think he's carrying it to an extreme. This issue of THRILLING WESTERN includes stories by Ray Nafziger (writing as Grant Taylor), Syl MacDowell, Allan K. Echols, Claude Rister, Cliff Walters, Wilton West, Frank Carl Young, and house-name Jackson Cole. With the exception of Nafziger, MacDowell, and Echols, none of those are remembered much today, but I'm sure it was an entertaining issue.