Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Exciting Western, May 1948

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan, with a dramatic and very effective cover by Sam Cherry. I’ve always liked leather shirt cuffs like the ones the cowboy on this cover is wearing.

“Brains in Broken Fork”, the featured novelette in this issue, opens with our intrepid range detective due Tombstone Jones and Speedy Smith on their way to the cowtown of Broken Fork on a rainy night. They start to take shelter from the storm in an isolated cabin, only to find it occupied by a recently deceased corpse, and a rather active one, at that, since it starts to move around and startles our heroes into lighting a shuck out of there.

After that atmospheric opening, the rest of the story is the usual mix of action, mystery, colorful characters, and humorous dialogue. Tombstone and Speedy have been sent to Broken Fork to corral some rustlers, but they find that an old robbery and a cache of missing loot are mixed up in the case, as well. And of course, there’s a pretty girl, an old sheriff, and a deputy who’s smarter than he looks, which is a good description of Tombstone and Speedy, too. As much as I enjoy this series—and I got some good chuckles out of this one—it still strikes me as one of the more uninspired entries. The plot relies heavily on elements that author W.C. Tuttle has employed in other Tombstone and Speedy yarns, and unless I missed something, he leaves one fairly important plot point completely unresolved, as if he totally forgot about it. Tuttle definitely wasn’t at the top of his game in this one, although I enjoyed reading it.

“Shotgun Nester” is by Ray Hayton, an author I’m unfamiliar with. He appears to have been rather prolific for a while, turning out 20 stories in various Western pulps from 1946 to 1948. According to the Fictionmags Index, he died at 1947 at a young age, so I was intrigued enough to do a little research. Turns out he was from Monroe, Louisiana, but committed suicide in New York City when he was only 25. His obituary on the Find A Grave website says that he served in the Army during World War II and had been writing since high school. More than half of his published fiction came out after his death, so he had stories in inventory at several magazines. Judging by “Shotgun Nester”, he was a decent writer. The protagonist is a sodbuster with a chip on his shoulder who clashes with the local cattle baron. It’s a pretty traditional story, nothing special, but well-written. I have to wonder why a writer who was apparently selling stories hand over fist would kill himself, but there’s always a lot more going on in people’s lives than we know, isn’t there?

I’m happy to report that Navajo Tom Raine makes an appearance in this issue, in the novelette “A Ranger to Reckon With”. This series, published under the house-name Jackson Cole, was created by Lee Bond, who shared writing duties on it with C. William Harrison. I’m convinced this story is by Lee Bond. For one thing, the characters stand around explaining the plot to each other, a very common technique in Bond’s stories. For another, the final shootout pits Raine against three villains, a setup that occurs in almost every story I’ve ever read by him. In this one, Raine is sent to find out who’s responsible for lynching three sodbusters. Despite being familiar, it plays out just fine and is an enjoyable read.

The last time I read a Ben Frank story, I surprised myself by kind of liking it. His story in this issue, “Circle C Checker Coup”, doesn’t have a promising title. I was expecting a humorous yarn about a checker game. Well, checkers figures in the plot, all right, but so do robbery and murder. The protagonist is a young cowhand who has a photographic memory, something I don’t think I’ve encountered before in a Western pulp yarn. I liked this one, too, quite a bit, in fact.

“Stranger in Rocky Gulch” is by Reeve Walker, a Thrilling Group house-name, so I don’t know who wrote it and couldn’t hazard a guess from reading the story. It’s about a young trail boss trying to get home with the money from selling his herd, only to be detoured into a poker game with some sinister characters. It’s a decent story, slightly unpredictable in how it plays out.

The novelette “Owlhoot Buckaroo” is the second appearance in this issue by Lee Bond (assuming I’m right about him being the author of the Navajo Tom Raine story). This stand-alone story is about a young cowboy who spent ten years being raised by an outlaw gang, although he didn’t take part in any of their criminal activities. He’s trying to put that shady past behind him, but of course, it keeps coming back to haunt him, especially when he tries to save a ranch belonging to a beautiful young woman. Although the plot is pretty standard stuff, this is an excellent story, well-written with good characters and plenty of action. Bond was a formulaic writer but capable of turning out a really good yarn. This is one of the best I’ve read by him.

“Lead Evens the Score” is by the prolific Gladwell Richardson. The protagonist is a young cowboy who returns to a crooked town to get even with the stable owner, saloonkeeper, and sheriff who robbed him on his previous visit. He discovers he’s not the only one with a grudge against that trio and has to move fast to settle their hash himself. I haven’t read a lot by Richardson. This story is okay, if nothing special.

“Judge Guppy’s Colt Law” sounds like it might be a humorous story, which is not something I expect from Wayne D. Overholser. But no, this tale of a frontier jurist trying to save a young cowboy from a murder frame is the straightforward, slightly dour sort of Western yarn Overholser usually turned out. It’s not bad, but I’ve never been a big fan of Overholser’s work and this one didn’t convert me.

Overall, this is a good issue of EXCITING WESTERN, although I wouldn’t say it’s one of the best I’ve read. With a slightly below average but still entertaining Tombstone and Speedy yarn, a good but not outstanding Navajo Tom Raine story, and better than expected tales by Lee Bond (under his own name) and Ben Frank, it’s worth reading if you have a copy on your shelves.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Texas Rangers, August 1951

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. That’s my copy in the scan. The cover is by Sam Cherry, of course.

The Jim Hatfield story in this issue, “Rustlers Ride”, has been attributed to A. Leslie Scott, but when I started reading it, I said, “Wait a minute. This has to be a Tom Curry story.” The first two chapters have all the hallmarks of a Hatfield yarn by Curry, including several scenes setting up the plot before Hatfield is ever introduced and a proxy hero in the person of stalwart young rancher Arch Haley. The prose is the straightforward storytelling of Curry, as well, lacking any of the descriptions and catch phrases you always find in Scott’s work.

Then, in Chapter 3, everything changes. The writing is definitely Scott’s, and that continues to the end of the novel. There are a number of plot twists that don’t turn out the way they seem to be set up in the first two chapters. If I had to guess, I’d say Tom Curry started this novel, and then for some unknown reason Scott took over with the third chapter. I could be ’way off on that theory, of course. This is pure speculation on my part. But it comes from reading a bunch of both authors’ work over the past 60 years.

Anyway, regardless of who wrote what, is “Rustlers Ride” a good Jim Hatfield novel? Yes, it is. Despite the title, rustling plays almost no part in this story. Instead, it’s about a gold strike in West Texas and the gang of outlaws preying on the mines and the nearby town. Hatfield foils numerous of the gang’s plans before finally figuring out who the mastermind is, and even though the big boss’s identity is pretty obvious, it still involves one of those nice twists mentioned above. The breakneck pace and the action scenes are good, as always. There’s nothing here Hatfield fans haven’t read many times before, but it’s done well and I had a really good time reading this story.

Moving on, Leslie Ernenwein’s short story “Outlaw Hunch” is about a former owlhoot gone straight and turned livery stable owner who has to consider a return to outlawry, but for noble reasons. This is a fairly lightweight, almost humorous story until it turns deadly serious near the end. I really like the way Ernenwein writes, and this is a very good story, reprinted from the March 1946 issue of THE RIO KID WESTERN. I need to read more of Ernenwein’s novels.

Wayne D. Overholser’s novelette “Traitors’ Blood is Red” originally appeared in the April 1947 issue of THRILLING WESTERN. Like much of Overholser’s work, it’s set in the Pacific Northwest. This story involves espionage and a conspiracy during the Civil War which, if it succeeds, will not only alter the course of the war but change the entire country as well. It’s an odd plot—you don’t often think of the Pacific Northwest in terms of being important to the Civil War, or at least I don’t—but Overholser makes it work. The writing is a little bland, but I find that to be true of most of Overholser’s stories.

Tom Curry appears under his own name with a short story original to this issue, “Stranger in Town”. A drifting gambler is blamed for a murder he didn’t commit and has to uncover the truth. It’s a fairly common plot, but Curry, always a dependable writer, does a good job with it.

I don’t know anything about Cibolo Ford except that he published several dozen stories in various Western pulps in the Thirties, Forties, and Fifties. The name has always sounded like a pseudonym to me, but I don’t know that it is. His story story “Widelooper Luck”, also original to this issue, features cowpokes Stony Lonesome and Stingaree Stanton helping their friend Gooble Nutter save his ranch from the evil scheming of lawyer J. Tubelo Zero. Those names were almost enough to make me skip this one, but I stuck with it and it’s actually okay. Mildly humorous, and I found myself liking the characters, which I didn’t expect to.

Barry Scobee is the only pulp writer to have a mountain named after him. It’s in the Davis Mountains in West Texas, near the town of Fort Davis. In addition to writing for the pulps, Scobee was a journalist and newspaper publisher and was instrumental in getting old Fort Davis, an abandoned military outpost from frontier days, restored and turned into a tourist attraction. His story in this issue, “Always Wanting Something”, is a reprint from the January 1946 issue of THE RIO KID WESTERN. It’s about a young cowboy at a turning point in his life, trying to figure out which direction to go, and is well written enough but never really very involving.

Best remembered for his Western poetry, S. Omar Barker turned out quite a bit of fiction as well. His story “Rowdy Romance”, as you’d expect from that title, is a humorous tale about a cowboy who sets aside his wild, devil-may-care ways in order to try to win a girl, only to have things turn out differently than he expects. Barker had an appealing way with words and the story is entertaining without ever really amounting to much. It’s a reprint from the December 1936 issue of THRILLING WESTERN.

There are also interior illustrations by H.L. Parkhurst and Nick Eggenhoffer, among other, unsigned illustrations.

I enjoyed this issue because “Rustlers Ride” is a slightly above-average Jim Hatfield novel and the short story by Leslie Ernenwein is pretty good. The other stories are highly forgettable. But I’m glad I read the Hatfield yarn.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Popular Western, September 1938

This fellow has a definite Buck Jones look about him. Maybe it's the hat. Is that an A. Leslie Ross cover? I don't know. Might be. But I do know that there are some good writers in this issue of POPULAR WESTERN, including Johnston McCulley, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), Tom Gunn (Syl McDowell, with a Painted Post yarn), Wayne D. Overholser, Larry Harris, and Russell A. Bankson. Looks like an issue worth reading.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Smashing Western, June 1939

All right, who's the artist on this SMASHING WESTERN cover? There's a big letter "R" down in the lower left corner, but is that the artist's initial, or just something written on there by somebody who owned that copy at some time in the past? My first thought was A. Leslie Ross because of that hat brim, but Ross often signed his covers and his signature doesn't look like the letter on this one. The man's face reminds me a little of Walter Baumhofer or Tom Lovell without convincing me it's either of them. Many of you are better at artist IDs than I am, so I'm hoping someone knows. As far as what's inside this pulp, there are stories by three excellent Western authors--E.B. Mann, Wayne D. Overholser, and C. William Harrison--and two house names, James Rourke and Cliff Campbell. According to the Fictionmags Index, Abner J. Sundell wrote the Cliff Campbell story. I believe Campbell started out as a personal pseudonym for Sundell before becoming a house name later on. I like the cover and that's a good bunch of authors, making me think this is probably a pretty good issue.

UPDATE: This cover is definitely by A. Leslie Ross. See the comments for more info. 

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Golden West Romances, February 1950

This Western romance pulp from the Thrilling Group lasted for only six issues in 1949-50, but I think there's a reason it ended when it did. The final issue of GOLDEN WEST ROMANCES came out approximately the same time as the first issue of RANCH ROMANCES after Ned Pines bought the long-running title from Warner Publications. Why publish an imitation of RANCH ROMANCES when you can publish the real thing? So maybe the six issues of this pulp should be considered a dry run of sorts for the Thrilling Group incarnation of RANCH ROMANCES. This particular issue is the third out of six and features a fine cover by Kirk Wilson, who did many great covers for RANCH ROMANCES. The redhead reminds me of Barbara Stanwyck, which is a good thing. Inside are stories by some fine writers including Wayne D. Overholser, Johnston McCulley, Stephen Payne, John Jo Carpenter (John Reese), Roger Dee (best remembered for his science fiction, Harold F. Cruickshank (best remembered for his air war yarns), and Francis H. Ames. With authors like that, I'm sure GOLDEN WEST ROMANCES was a magazine worth reading during its short life.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Fifteen Western Tales, April 1948

There's a lot going on in this cover by Sam Cherry, more than you might realize at first glance. We have our stalwart hero in a red shirt . . . or is he a hero? He's clearly been wearing the mask that just fell down around his neck, and there's a bag of stolen bank loot lying beside him. He's been lassoed, his horse is running away in the background, and there's a guy on the porch behind him probably shooting at him. He must have been trying to make his getaway after robbing the bank when somebody dabbed a loop on him. But that's a Lone Ranger/Masked Rider type of mask, not a bank robber mask. So I don't really know what's going on, but it's a good cover anyway, as you'd expect from Sam Cherry. Inside this issue of FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES are stories by Wayne D. Overholser, Clifton Adams, Barry Cord (Peter Germano), Talmage Powell, Joe Archibald, Thomas Calvert McClary, Kenneth Fowler, Wallace Umphrey, and the obscure Ruland Waltner. FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES included features and articles in that count, so there are actually only nine pieces of fiction in this issue, but they look like pretty good stories.

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: Ace-High Western Stories, May 1945

Another dramatic, action-packed cover on this issue of ACE-HIGH WESTERN STORIES. I don't know the artist. As always with Western pulps from Popular Publications, the lineup of authors is a good one and the story titles are great. On hard are prolific Western pulpsters Thomas Thompson, Wayne D. Overholser, Archie Joscelyn, and M. Howard Lane, but the lead-off story in this issue is by science fiction legend Clifford D. Simak. Simak was a solid enough Western writer that I think he could have made a bigger name for himself in that genre if he'd wanted to, but of course his main interests lay elsewhere.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Ranch Romances, Second March Number, 1953

Kirk Wilson did only a handful of covers for RANCH ROMANCES, but the ones he did are all excellent, like this one. This appears to be a pretty good issue as far as the authors with stories in it, too: Dean Owen, Wayne D. Overholser, Frank Castle, Robert Aldrich (not the movie director), Harrison Colt, Cy Kees, Robert Moore Williams, and Clark Gray. The others could be hit and miss, but Owen, Overholser, and Castle are enough to make an issue like this worth reading.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Story, December 5, 1942

This cowboy's got a lot of trouble coming at him in this cover by H.W. Scott for WESTERN STORY, the granddaddy of the Western pulp genre. Inside this issue is the novella featured on the cover, "Salinas Showdown" by Bennett Foster, plus other stories by Wayne D. Overholster, Gunnison Steele (Bennie Gardner), Hapsburg Liebe, Cliff Walters, and Kenneth Gilbert. That's a solid lineup of Western authors.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Ranch Romances, Third April Number, 1950

RANCH ROMANCES was published every two weeks and referred to the issues as the First Number and the Second Number for each month. Not many months lined up just right to have three issues published in them, but clearly April 1950 did, because this is the Third April Number, 1950. With another very good cover by Kirk Wilson, who did some fine work for RANCH ROMANCES. The best-known authors inside this issue are L.P. Holmes, Wayne D. Overholser, and Robert Moore Williams. Also on hand are lesser-known authors Pat Johns, A. Kenneth Brent, and Ennen Reeves Hall, with a reprint from THRILLING RANCH STORIES.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Ace-High Western Stories, March 1944

Now there's a cover with some punch to it! I'm not sure of the artist, but I think it may be Robert Stanley. The biggest names inside this issue are Wayne D. Overholser, Joseph Chadwick, C. William Harrison, and Ralph Berard, who was really Victor H. White. The authors rounding out the Table of Contents are Cliff Bisbee, Ralph Yergen, Le Roy Boyd, Melvin W. Holt, and James P. Webb, prolific but little-remembered pulpsters. As usual with a Western pulp from Popular Publications, there are some great story titles, including "Guardian of Satan's Range", "Gun-Prodigal's Homecoming", and my favorite "There's Hell in Thunder Valley!" I think I'm going to have to steal that and use it as a line of dialogue in a book.

Saturday Morning Western Pulps: Western Trails, November 1939

This great cover by Rafael de Soto from WESTERN TRAILS was also used on one side of an Ace Double Western (see below). WESTERN TRAILS and later Ace Books were both owned by A.A. Wyn, so I'm sure this isn't the only case where covers from the Ace Western pulps later showed up on Ace Double paperbacks. This particular issue looks like a good one, with stories by L.P. Holmes, Wayne D. Overholser, Tom J. Hopkins, Claude Rister, and Joe Archibald, among others. I've found WESTERN TRAILS and its sister publication, WESTERN ACES, to be consistently good, and of course I love the Ace Double Westerns. I think I've read Leslie Scott's THE BRAZOS FIREBRAND, but it's been so long ago I'm not sure anymore. Maybe I'll dig it out and read it again.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Lariat Story Magazine, May 1944

As usual with a Fiction House pulp, the cover of this issue of LARIAT STORY MAGAZINE features both exciting action and a pretty girl. I don't know who the artist was, but I think he did a good job. Inside are stories by top Western pulpsters Wayne D. Overholster, J.E. Grinstead, M. Howard Lane, and Curtis Bishop, as well as house-name John Starr (if I had to guess, I'd say Bishop, but that's purely a guess) and much-better-known-for-his-science-fiction Clifford D. Simak. I've read a few of Simak's Western stories and found them to be very good. I like the title of that John Starr yarn: "Six Sins in My Holster". The editor must not have been quite at the top of his game, though. That title really needs an exclamation mark at the end of it.

UPDATE: The cover art is by Norman Saunders, used originally on the October 1937 issue of ACTION STORIES. Thanks to Sheila Vanderbeek for the info!

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Exciting Western, May 1948

Another Old West poker game gone bad in this excellent cover by Sam Cherry! EXCITING WESTERN was a consistently good Western pulp with several different series running regularly in its pages. In this issue there's a Tombstone and Speedy yarn by the great W.C. Tuttle, plus a Navajo Tom Raine, Arizona Ranger story by house-name Jackson Cole. Also on hand are top-notch pulpsters Wayne D. Overholser, Lee Bond, Gladwell Richardson, Ben Frank, and another house-name, Reeve Walker. 

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Giant Western, April 1952

This cover is more proof, as if we needed it, that no card game ever ended peacefully in the Old West. Sam Cherry did most of the covers for GIANT WESTERN and this one is probably his work, too, but I don't know that for sure. There are some good authors inside this issue: Wayne D. Overholser, Philip Ketchum, and William Hopson all have stories, along with Russ Winterbotham and William Ratigan, who wrote a series for ADVENTURE about a character named Captain McCargo. I've never read any of those, but they sound good. 

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Ranch Romances, First February Number, 1952

A really nice cover on this issue of RANCH ROMANCES. I think I want to write a story with that redhead in it! I don't know the artist. There's a signature in the bottom right corner, but I can't make it out. There's a great group of writers inside, too: Wayne D. Overholser, Todhunter (W.T.) Ballard, Giff Cheshire, Elmer Kelton, Tom W. Blackburn, and Arthur Lawson. It would be hard to go wrong with that bunch.

Saturday Evening Western Pulp: Masked Rider Western, January 1943

So, we have a Saturday Evening Western Pulp this week, because I never got a chance to post until now. I don’t own this pulp, but I recently read an e-book reprint of the Masked Rider novel from it, “Black Gold Empire”. It’s a familiar tale of oil being discovered in cattle country, and a criminal mastermind and his outlaw henchmen playing cattlemen and oilmen against each other so they can come in and take over the whole shooting match. A standard plot, for sure, but the author, C. William Harrison, does a good job with it and keeps the story moving along at a very fast pace with lots of action. Harrison was a dependable Western pulpster whose work often had a nice hardboiled tone. He wasn’t the best plotter in the world, and that shows up in this yarn as things get a little muddled in the second half and developments get dragged in from ‘way out in left field, but overall “Black Gold Empire” is a pretty entertaining story. Despite being a Lone Ranger rip-off, The Masked Rider is an interesting character in his own right, and his Yaqui friend Blue Hawk is one of the best sidekicks in the pulps.

The ebook also contains one of the short stories from this issue, “Black Rock Badman” by Harrison Hendryx, who was really James Hendryx Jr. and went on to edit some of the Thrilling Group’s Western pulps during the Fifties. It’s an excellent yarn about a drifting cowboy’s encounter with a small rancher/prospector and all the action that ensues. Hendryx packs a lot of action into a relatively short length with a bank robbery, a gold strike, murder, and a couple of shootouts. I don’t recall ever reading anything else by him, but I’m going to keep my eyes open for his work.

Also on hand are Wayne D. Overholser with a novelette and an author I’m not familiar with, Clay Winburne, with a short story. Having liked the two stories I’ve now read and knowing how consistently good Overholser was, I’d say this was a pretty strong issue of MASKED RIDER WESTERN.

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: Ranch Romances, Second April Number, 1949

That's a pretty, um, sultry cover for a late Forties issue of RANCH ROMANCES. But not surprisingly, I like it. I don't know who the artist was. Inside this issue are stories by some excellent authors, including L.P. Holmes, Wayne D. Overholser, Ray Townsend, Wilbur S. Peacock, and Walt Sheldon. Clearly RANCH ROMANCES was starting to take on some of the hardboiled tone that was common in it during the Fifties.