Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Real Western Stories, October 1953

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. I don’t know why the front cover is missing that strip at the bottom. That’s the way I got it. Luckily, the loss doesn’t detract too much from the cover by A. Leslie Ross. Not in the top rank of Ross’s work, to my mind, but his covers are always worthwhile. I’ll put a scan of the whole cover from the Fictionmags Index at the end of this post.

This issue opens with a novelette (probably closer to a novella, really) by Seven Anderton, a distinctly named author who’s mostly forgotten but who produced consistently good work for the Western and detective pulps. “Cactus Basin Showdown” features a pair of protagonists who fit the mold of many other Western pulp yarns: Brick Gordon is a handsome, two-fisted, fast-shooting cowboy, while his sidekick Galena Jones is a much older and grizzled old codger. If you’re thinking Buster Crabbe and Al “Fuzzy” St. John, well, so was I while reading this story. Anderton adds a nice variation to the story, though. Brick handles most of the action, but Galena is really the thinking half of the duo as they pitch in to help some homesteaders who are being run out of Cactus Basin by the local cattle baron/range hog. Yes, it’s a cattleman vs. sodbusters yarn, a very standard plot, but Anderton makes it fresh with his solid writing and characterizations. Even the main villain has a little depth to him. I enjoyed this story quite a bit.

The line at the top of the cover says “15 Action-Packed Stories”, but what it doesn’t tell you is that six of them are historical articles and features. I have nothing against such things and when I come across them in pulps, I usually skim them and read the more interesting ones, but really, I’m there for the fiction, so I’m not going to delve into the non-fiction. The next actual story in this issue is “The Haunted Town” by Lon Williams, an entry in his series of Weird Westerns about Deputy Sheriff Lee Winters. In this one, Winters encounters a werewolf—or does he? I’ve been aware of this series for years and always figured it would be right in my wheelhouse, but I’ve read several of them now, including this one, and for some reason I just don’t really like them very much. Something about the writing in them doesn’t resonate with me, and I don’t find Winters to be a very likable protagonist. Maybe I’m wrong about them. I’d be willing to try a few more before giving up on the series, but at this point, I’m not optimistic.

I’ve read several stories by Richard Brister and enjoyed them. “The Ioway Upstart” in this issue is about a tenderfoot from Des Moines who’s stranded in a rough, lawless mining camp. Either picked on or looked down upon by nearly everybody in the camp, he comes up with a clever way to win their respect, and also the heart of the best-looking girl in town. This is an entertaining, well-written story and makes me think I need to try one of Brister’s novels.

I read another story in the Able Cain series by A.A. Baker not long ago and enjoyed it, but his entry in this issue, “Able Cain’s Arena”, left me kind of cold. The title character is a judge in a mining boomtown and comes up with the idea of building a boxing arena so the miners can settle their disputes without shooting each other. It’s not a bad idea, but the story never generated much excitement or interest in me. My fault, maybe. Too soon to pass judgment on this series, but I’ve definitely had mixed reactions to it so far.

Gene Austin wrote a lot of stories for the Western pulps, but he seems to have been on autopilot in “Whistling in Boothill”. This story about the clash between two ranchers has some nice action at the end that almost redeems it, but the plot is really thin.

“The Hombre That Hell Wouldn’t Have” is a good title. The story is by Humphrey Jones, who wrote several dozen stories for assorted Western, detective, and sports pulps. It’s a decent yarn about a prospector who’s robbed and left to die in the desert. The resolution is pretty far-fetched, but overall, not a bad story.

Ralph Berard was the pseudonym of the very prolific pulpster Victor H. White. His story in this issue, “Gold Country Boothill”, is a very suspenseful tale about a young prospector framed for murder and the trial-by-vigilante that results. This is well-written, well-plotted, and has a very nice final twist that I didn’t see coming. I liked this one.

J.J. Mathews was another very prolific pulpster who turned out scores of Western, detective, and sports stories. His story in this issue is “Devil’s Homemaker”, which isn’t a very good title for this yarn about a young man’s quest for vengeance on the man who gunned down his father. But it’s got a decent plot and some emotional complexity, and the writing has a nice hardboiled tone to it. This is another good one from a forgotten but reliable pro.

Rex Whitechurch was a pseudonym that appeared on dozens of Western, detective, and sports stories, all of them published in various Columbia pulps edited by Robert Lowndes. Was it a house-name? That’s possible, I suppose, but I honestly have no idea. The Whitechurch story in this issue, “The Bronc Riders”, is a modern-day rodeo story and more of a romance than an action story. In fact, much of it reads more like mainstream fiction than genre Western. And it’s really, really good, too—until it runs smack into an ending that left me staring at the page in disbelief. Talk about a story falling apart at the last minute! This one is promising but very disappointing.

So what we have here is an issue of REAL WESTERN STORIES that’s a very mixed bag. Several of the stories are very good to excellent, and others I didn’t like at all. I’m glad I read it and will be on the lookout for more stories by Seven Anderton and Richard Brister. Heck, I’d even give Rex Whitechurch another try, and he made me want to throw the pulp across the room! But don’t race to your shelves to look for this one.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Real Western Stories, August 1953

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. I don’t know who did the cover. The background looks like A. Leslie Ross’s work to me, but the figures don’t. Whoever painted it, I think it’s a fairly effective cover. Since it was a Columbia pulp, REAL WESTERN STORIES had a reputation as a low-budget production, but editor Robert W. Lowndes regularly turned out enjoyable magazines, and I was eager to find out if this issue was one of them.

A friend of mine is a fan of Seven Anderton’s work, and based on his recommendation I’ve read several of Anderton’s stories over the years. His novella “Cyclone in Petticoats” leads off this issue. It opens with a determined young woman named Ruth Horn arriving from the East in the Western town where her uncle owns the bank. He’s her last living relative, or so she thinks. Actually, the bank was robbed and her uncle was killed a short time before she got there. During the journey, she’s made the acquaintance of veterinarian “Bones” Egan, who fills her in on the troubles in the area brought on a corrupt banker and a crooked cattleman, and Ruth decides to stick around, run the bank, and break the hold that the two villains have on the town and the basin where it’s located.

This is a very well-written story with lots of good dialogue, interesting characters, and a well-handled romance between Ruth and Egan. Anderton keeps things moving along at a nice pace. What there’s a shortage of is action. The story is almost over before anybody burns any powder. The big showdown/battle is pretty good, mind you. I enjoyed “Cyclone in Petticoats” mostly because of Anderton’s excellent prose.

If you’ve never read any of Lon Williams’ stories about Deputy Lee Winters . . . well, there’s really nothing else in the Western pulps like this lengthy series. Winters is always running into bizarre situations, often with a hint, or more than a hint, of the supernatural. Sometimes, as in “A Desert Hippocrates”, the story in this issue, the threat facing Winters is just weird. The plot involves a pair of British doctors in the Old West performing some rather odd surgeries. Williams’ work has a very distinctive voice, which I like, but I’ve found the Lee Winters series to be hit and miss for me, and probably more misses than hits. This one is an average entry, mildly entertaining, but somehow it doesn’t quite work.

Lee Floren makes his first of two appearances in this issue with the short story “A Trap for a Skunk”, under the pseudonym Lew Smith. I’m not a big fan of Floren’s work, but his stories usually move along at a nice clip and this one is no exception. The plot concerns a couple of old-timers who have to take drastic action to save a young friend of theirs from the cattle baron who’s plotting to kill him. This isn’t a bad yarn, but I thought it was sorely lacking one final twist that it needed. The ending is really flat.

A.A. Baker worked for Grayhound Bus Lines and wrote Western novels and short stories on the side, publishing steadily but never achieving much fame in the genre. I don’t recall ever reading anything by him before, but his short story in this issue, “Abel Cain Strikes Back”, is pretty good. Abel Cain is a frontier judge keeping law and order in a California mining boomtown. In this yarn, a mob storms the jail not to lynch a prisoner but to free him so that he can lead his rescuers to a new gold strike. Baker throws a nice twist into the mix and comes up with an entertaining story featuring good characters and some nice action. Baker wrote more than thirty Abel Cain stories between 1948 and 1959, and I wouldn’t mind reading more of them.

Richard Brister wrote hundreds of Western, detective, and sports stories for the pulps as well as a dozen or so Western novels. His short story in this issue, “Learn and Live”, concerns an encounter between a notorious outlaw and the consumptive doctor who patches up a bullet wound for him. It’s well-written and clever, a pretty good yarn.

“Boothill Double-Cross” is by Crag Martin, an author about whom I know absolutely nothing except that he published nine stories in various Western pulps in the early Fifties. This one is about a young sheriff trying to clear the name of a friend of his who has been accused of robbing the local bank. It’s a very predictable story with nothing that stands out about the writing or the plot. Average at best, partially redeemed by some decent action at the end.

“The Lie” is by Fred Landreth, his only credit in the Fictionmags Index. That always makes me wonder if the name was a one-time pseudonym. I don’t know about that, but this short-short about a youngster visiting the camp of two notorious outlaws, bent on taking up a career as an owlhoot himself, is well-written. There’s not much to it, but I enjoyed it.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a big fan of Lee Floren’s work, mostly because it’s so inconsistent. I think his early novels about drifting adventurers Buck McKee and Tortilla Joe are my favorites of what I’ve read by him. Floren wrote another long-running series about two-fisted jurist Judge Lemanuel Bates and his sidekick, postmaster Tobacco Jones. More than two dozen of these yarns were published in various pulps. Floren’s novelette in this issue, “Loco Lead”, is the next to last Judge Bates story in the pulps, although he would continue to write novels about the character throughout the Sixties. This is a pretty good one featuring a would-be killer employing an unusual method in an attempt to commit murder. The plot is solid, there’s some nice action, and I found Judge Bates and Tobacco Jones to be likable protagonists. The only sign of Floren’s frequent carelessness is that one of the characters changes names almost paragraph to paragraph, sometimes called Bart Smith and sometimes Luke Smith. I suppose Stan Lee would have explained that by saying that his full name is Barton Lucas Smith. Also, Lowndes should have caught that, but I doubt that he did much diligent line editing on these stories. I don’t recall ever reading any of the stories in this series before, but based on “Loco Lead”, I wouldn’t hesitate to try another one. I might even check and see if I have any of Floren’s Judges Bates novels on my shelves.

Overall, I’d say this is a very average issue of REAL WESTERN STORIES. The best story is Seven Anderton’s novella, which is very good although I thought it could be better. Lee Floren surprised me by contributing my second-favorite story in this issue with “Loco Lead”, followed by A.A. Baker with a tale about another frontier judge, Abel Cain. The other stories are all readable with varying degrees of entertainment value. If you’re inclined to check out any of these stories for yourself, you can find the entire issue on-line here.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Double Action Western, September 1953

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. The cover is another by A. Leslie Ross, even though it’s not credited as such. The distinctive hats make me confident that it’s Ross’s work, as does the sketchiness of the background which was common on his pulp covers from this era.

I don’t recall if I’ve read anything by Richard Brister before (and I’m too lazy to look it up), but I’m impressed by his lead novelette in this issue. “Death Rides for Doom Ranch” (I’m betting editor Robert W. Lowndes came up with that title) has an unusual protagonist: a doctor sent to prison for the mercy killing of his best friend who had cancer. After escaping, the doctor heads west, where a disastrous train derailment gets him involved with a rancher and the rancher’s beautiful daughter. At this point, I was expecting a save-the-ranch story, albeit with an offbeat protagonist, but that’s not what Brister has in mind. Instead he introduces the local sheriff, who’s in love with the rancher’s beautiful daughter, and what we get is a story that mixes psychological suspense and soap opera, with very little action. What’s surprising to me is how much I enjoyed it anyway as Brister kept me flipping the pages to find out what was going to happen. That takes some skillful writing. I’m going to have to delve deeper into Brister’s work.

As we all know from the Internet, Leo Tolstoy has taught us that there are only three plots in fiction: A man goes on a journey. A stranger comes to town. Godzilla versus Megashark. (I’m sorry. I just really like that meme.) Barney Stuart’s short story “He Just Walked Away” takes place entirely in the small town of Tall Timber, Montana, so it doesn’t really fit the first category, and there are no monsters in it, so this must be a “stranger comes to town” story. The stranger is a bad guy, too, and it looks like he’s going to cause considerable trouble until one of the locals takes action against him in an unusual manner. There’s a sort of twist ending that’s not very surprising, but it is effective. This is Barney Stuart’s only credit in the Fictionmags Index. A pseudonym? Who knows? But it’s a decent little yarn.

“Command Performance” is by David James, a fairly prolific pulpster whose work appeared only in pulps from Columbia Publications, which always makes me suspect a house-name. Be that as it may, this story has an interesting protagonist, too: a former New York City police detective who has to move west for his health and winds up becoming the sheriff of a mining town. A famous female opera singer comes to town for the opening of its new opera house. The sheriff has a crush on the opera singer and gives everybody he arrests the choice of sitting in jail or buying a ticket for the opening night performance. That results in a packed house, but cowboys and miners being what they are, chaos ensues. This is a decent setup and the story is mildly amusing, but in the end it doesn’t amount to much and seems like it needed another plot angle or two to make it interesting.

C.C. Staples wrote about 50 Western and adventure stories for various pulps between the late Thirties and the early Fifties. His story in this issue, “Golden Boy”, is about an Arizona Ranger on the trail of a horse thief turned murderer and kidnapper. It’s not bad, plenty of action and fairly well written. I’m not going to rush out and look for more stories by Staples, but I enjoyed this one.

Robert Sidney Bowen is probably best remembered for his air war stories, but he wrote quite a few Western and detective yarns, too. “Gambler’s Pot” in this issue is a rare Western pulp story in that it’s written in first person, by a crooked gambler who has a plan to bilk a successful rancher. Naturally, things don’t work as he expects. There’s really not much to this story, but Bowen was a good enough storyteller to make it readable, if not memorable.

Norman Ober wrote a lot for the Columbia pulps, mostly sports stories but some Westerns, too. His story in this issue, “Election in Creek Bottom”, is a comedy about a crooked saloon owner running his own candidate in the election for sheriff, only to have the scheme backfire on him. It’s a fairly amusing yarn and could have made a good movie starring, say, Don Knotts.

“Drygulch Range” by E.E. Clement uses the save-the-ranch plot that I thought I was going to get in Richard Brister’s story, only this novelette doesn’t have an offbeat protagonist. Instead, our hero is the usual drifting cowpoke, in this case stalwart Texan Steve Crane who is on his way to the Black Hills of South Dakota to start a horse ranch there. A reference to the Spanish-American War places the time period of this one around the turn of the century. Crane encounters a pint-size rustler hunter and then the little boy’s beautiful older sister shows up and mistakes Crane for a rustler, too, at least at first. A little bit later, a bushwhacker tries to ventilate him. Yep, our boy Steve shore is ridin’ into trouble.

While the plot of this one may not be anything new, Lowndes does an excellent job of spinning an entertaining yarn. He gives us a tough, likable protagonist, plenty of action, and a few humorous touches. Some of the “yuh mangy polecat” dialogue is so over the top, I’m convinced his tongue was firmly in his cheek as he wrote this, but if he’s making a little fun of the genre’s conventions, he’s doing it in a very affectionate way. I enjoyed this one a lot, and I’m going to have to go through my stack of Columbia Western pulps looking for more E.E. Clement stories.

There are also several fact-based features by Lauran Paine, Lee Floren (writing as Lee Thomas), and A. Hyatt Verrill, but as usual I just skimmed these. I don’t actually read features in a Western pulp unless they’re about some historical subject in which I’m particularly interested.

This is a pretty solid issue of DOUBLE ACTION WESTERN, another good example of how Lowndes, as an editor, could make something out of almost nothing (the magazine’s tiny budget). There are no truly outstanding stories, although the Brister and the Clement novelettes come close, but they’re all readable and entertaining.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Mammoth Western, March 1950

Another dramatic cover by Arnold Kohn graces this issue of MAMMOTH WESTERN. The most well-known author inside is probably H.A. DeRosso, although there's also a Richard Brister story. The lead novel, "The Heiress of Copper Butte", was published under the name Guy Archette, normally a pseudonym for Ziff-Davis regular Chester S. Geier, but this one was actually written by Paul W. Fairman, then expanded and reprinted under his name in paperback at least twice, first by Handi-Books (an edition I own but haven't read) and then Lancer. Also in this issue are stories by Dupree Poe, Francis M. Deegan, Bill Kirk, W.P. Brothers, and Clint Young. I've never considered MAMMOTH WESTERN one of the top Western pulps, but there are still some good stories in its pages.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Double-Action Western, July 1953

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a big fan of Lee Floren’s work, despite him being both prolific and popular for a long time. I picked up this pulp to read anyway, even though he’s the author of the featured novel, “Smoky River Gunsmoke”. And for a change, unlike most pulp “novels”, this one probably is close to actual novel length. Ace Double length, anyway.

And for another change, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Yes, the writing is clumsy at times. Floren’s attempts at humor usually fall flat. The plot, a standard cattlemen vs. homesteaders yarn, is nothing we haven’t read and seen a thousand times before. But the characters have unexpected depth to them, even the bad guys. The main villain does some things that make him a poignant, almost tragic figure. He’s still evil, mind you, but there’s more to him than that. Also, the action scenes are great. I think I’m coming to the realization that Floren was just one of those writers who had a distinctive style, for better or worse (and sometimes it’s both), and I appreciate that. After reading this one, I may actually seek out more of his work.

Richard Deming was a top-notch mystery author whose work I’ve long admired, so I was a little surprised that his short story in this issue, “Reluctant Killer”, isn’t very good. This tale of a deadly gunman’s quest for a normal life is well-written, but it’s pretty slow and talky and not much happens.

I’m not that familiar with Charles D. Richardson Jr. I think I’ve seen his name in Western pulps, but that’s all I know about him. “Ride ’Em, Cowgirl” is a horse race story, with the cowgirl of the title trying to replace her injured beau in an important race. There’s nothing really wrong with this one, but it never caught my interest.

I’ve read several stories by Lloyd Kevin and the only novel he published, a hardboiled sleaze novel from Monarch Books. His novelette in this issue, “Schoolmaster From the East”, could well be a reject from RANCH ROMANCES. The title character comes to a Western town and finds himself in the middle of a conflict over water rights, as well as falling for the beautiful daughter of the rancher who controls the source of that water. Although I think it could have used a more dramatic title, I enjoyed this story. The author doesn’t fall into the trap of making his protagonist more competent than he logically should be, and the mystery element is worked out fairly well. This is the second-best story in the issue, after the Floren yarn.

Richard Brister, another author whose name is familiar to me, rounds out things with the short story “No Whiskey on Hobnail”, in which a rancher attempts to rehabilitate a young criminal from the big city. This is also a pretty good, effective story and makes me want to read more by Brister.

So, overall, this isn’t an outstanding issue of DOUBLE-ACTION WESTERN, but it’s a good one. Surprisingly good in the case of the Floren novel. That’s happened to me on occasion before, not being a fan of a writer’s work and then coming to appreciate and enjoy it. We’ll see if that comes about again.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Smashing Detective Stories, December 1952

That's a striking cover on this late detective pulp from Columbia. As usual, editor Robert Lowndes has assembled a good-looking pulp with some very good authors inside, even on a low budget. In this case, that group includes Richard Deming, Robert Turner, Seven Anderton, Thomas Thursday, and Richard Brister. Those guys are nearly always worth reading.

UPDATE: Lowell Wilson points out this cover is a swipe from Ray Johnson's cover for CHARLIE CHAN CARRIES ON. I assume that Johnson did this SMASHING DETECTIVE cover, as well. I've seen several mentions of Johnson's work lately. He was an excellent cover artist.

 

Saturday Afternoon Western Pulp: Ace-High Western Stories, July 1949

I'm going to be writing a book set in Death Valley later this year, but I won't be able to call it "Death Valley Gun-Devils". I would if I could! I'm sure this is a good story, though, since it's by William Heuman. Other authors in this issue of ACE-HIGH WESTERN STORIES are Tom Roan, Richard Brister, Larry Harris, and Harold F. Cruickshank. I don't know who painted the cover. Something about the guy's head looks just a bit off to me, as if it doesn't quite sit right on his body, but seeing as I have no artistic talent whatsoever, I feel a little bad about criticizing it. Overall I like it and think it's another exciting Popular Publications cover.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: West, March 1950

An interesting cover by an unknown artist. The shadow almost makes the guy look like he's wearing a mask. And of course, this cover is further evidence that no poker game in the Old West ever ended peacefully. I also find it curious that a story by Harry C. Rubicam Jr. gets such prominent treatment when ol' Harry, whoever he was, apparently only published one other story in his career, also in WEST a couple of years earlier. He wrote a few non-fiction books and at least one Western novel, but this issue also includes stories by Johnston McCulley, Allen K. Echols, Richard Brister, and Dupree Poe, and if I was the editor I would have put any of them on the cover ahead of Rubicam. Barry Scobee is on the cover and was a top-notch pulpster, so I agree with that editorial decision. Anyway, it's an eye-catching cover.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: 10 Story Western Magazine, April 1947

And thus another Old West poker game comes to a violent end. Not only that, but look at the bullet hole in the guy's hat brim. Injury to a Hat Alert! I love this cover, which I'm pretty sure is by Robert Stanley. It's the little details that really make it work, like the two matches tucked in the cowboy's hat band and the royal flush laid out on the table. A lesser artist might not have even thought of those things. 10 STORY WESTERN MAGAZINE always had a good group of authors, and this issue is no exception: Tom W. Blackburn, Joseph Chadwick, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), Carl McK. Saunders (Philip Ketchum; "Saunders" is a pseudonym he used mostly for mystery and detective yarns), John Jo Carpenter (John Reese), Rod Patterson, Richard Brister, and Harrison Colt, a name I've always thought must be a pseudonym, but I don't know if it really was. Plus the familiar, instantly recognizable yellow-and-red color scheme. I'm a big fan of 10 STORY WESTERN and this looks like an excellent issue.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Famous Detective Stories, February 1951

Man, do I love that cover! Not only do we have a sexy redheaded nurse, we've got a gun hidden in a cast (a dang cannon, from the looks of that muzzle blast), and stories with titles like "Trigger-Happy Honey" and "The Chortling Corpse". As the old saying goes, this stuff is right up my alley! Inside are stories by old pros T.W. Ford, Dale Clark, and Richard Brister, prolific house-names Mat Rand and Cliff Campbell, and a story by none other than science fiction great Cyril Kornbluth. I would have bought this one for the cover, but I'll bet I would have enjoyed the stories, too.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Lariat Story Magazine, November 1946

Almost every time I see a cover from LARIAT STORY, I think, "I want to write that story!" This one is no exception. Someone beat me to it, of course. Authors in this issue include Dan Cushman, Lee E. Wells, Rollin Brown, Ben Frank, Richard Brister, and John A. Saxon.