Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Adventure, October 1948

A pegleg, a pith helmet, a pistol, a dagger, and a dead body! You don't get much more adventure pulp than this cover by Peter Stevens on, what else, ADVENTURE. This issue is also of interest because it contains the novella "Jewel of the Java Sea" by Dan Cushman, which I assume he expanded into the novel of the same title that Gold Medal published a few years later. Also on hand are Georges Surdez, Jim Kjelgaard, Max Kesler, and William Fuller, along with lesser-known authors Robinson McLean, Ian Lasry, and Richard S. Porteous, who wrote under the odd pseudonym "Standby". I don't own this issue, but if I did, Cushman and Surdez would be enough to prompt me to read it.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Texas Rangers, May 1952

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. The cover art is by Sam Cherry. The Jim Hatfield novel in this issue has some historical significance in the series as it’s the first one attributed to Peter B. Germano (best remembered for his novels under the pseudonym Barry Cord). Germano would go on to be one of the primary authors of the series during the Fifties, contributing 16 Hatfield novels, behind only Walker A. Tompkins (24 Hatfields during the Fifties, 28 overall) and Roe Richmond (22 Hatfields).

In “Secret of Dry Valley”, the plot finds Hatfield traveling to the Texas Panhandle in answer to a summons for help from an old friend of his boss, Captain Bill McDowell. When he gets there, he finds that the old friend (and former Ranger) has disappeared, and there’s a war brewing between the local cattle baron and a saloon owner who carry old grudges against each other. Working undercover, Hatfield survives a couple of bushwhackings, a pair of fistfights, and showdowns against fast on the draw gunslicks. Along the way to figuring out what’s really going on, he rescues a beautiful young woman (yes, she’s the cattle baron’s daughter) from quicksand. (In the immortal words of Bill Crider, quicksand makes any story better.) Hatfield triumphs in the end, of course, after some nice action scenes.

“Secret of Dry Valley” reads in some ways like an author’s first novel in an established series. It seems to me to be influenced by the work of the series’ two primary authors before this point, Leslie Scott and Tom Curry, and it’s likely that Germano read at least a few of their entries before tackling a Hatfield novel of his own. There’s a proxy hero whose job is to help Hatfield and wind up with the girl, a character type who shows up in nearly all of Curry’s Hatfield novels. The main plot point revolves around geography and an engineering problem, as in many of Scott’s Hatfield novels. There’s no mention of Hatfield’s engineering training in college before he became a Ranger, but he demonstrates such knowledge in solving the mystery.

At the same time, indications that this yarn is by a new author show up here and there. Hatfield is often referred to the narrative as “Jim”, something the other authors hardly ever do. He’s dressed in a suit, white shirt, and string tie throughout the novel, very different from the range clothes he usually wears. I can see doing that if there’s a good reason for it in the plot, but there’s not. He’s supposed to be working undercover, and yet he gives his real name to everybody he encounters. Eventually, some of the other characters remember there’s a famous Texas Ranger known as the Lone Wolf whose name is Jim Hatfield, but it takes a long time.

Despite those quibbles, “Secret of Dry Valley” is a pretty entertaining story. It has a little of the terse yet poetic, hardboiled prose that will become more common in Germano’s later entries in the series. The action is good, the settings are rendered fairly vividly, and there are a few small but effective plot twists. Germano’s Hatfield novels got better as he went along, but “Secret of Dry Valley” is a good solid start and well worth reading.

“El Soldado” is a short story by the always reliable Gordon D. Shirreffs. It's a Civil War tale set in New Mexico, in which a lone Union soldier tries to prevent a gang of Confederate irregulars from making off with a bunch of vital supplies. Shirreffs wrote several novels about the Civil War in the West, and while the plot in this story is a little thin because of its length, the writing is excellent.

The novelette “The Unholy Grail” is a Prodigal Son story by Roe Richmond. After his older brother is gunned down, Mike Grail, a fast gun and hellraising drifter dubbed by his father The Unholy Grail, returns home to help his family survive a feud with some old enemies. This is also a Romeo and Juliet story since Mike is in love with the daughter of his father’s arch-nemesis, and one of the sons from the rival family is in love with Mike’s sister. Richmond’s work is usually hit-or-miss with me, but this one lands squarely in the middle. The characters are interesting and there are some good action scenes, but the writing often seems rushed. I think this story might have been better as a novella or even a novel. It needed more room to develop.

“William and the Contract Buck” by Jim Kjelgaard is a bit of an oddity, a short story about some city slickers trying to put one over on a dumb hillbilly—but is he? This is well-written, as Kjelgaard’s stories always are, but there’s really not much to it and it’s out of place in a Western pulp. I think it must have been aimed at the slicks, or possibly at ADVENTURE, and sold to the Thrilling Group when it was rejected elsewhere. But that’s just a guess on my part.

Jim O’Mara was the pseudonym of Vernon Fluharty, who also wrote Westerns under the name Michael Carder. His story in this issue, “When the Sun Goes Down”, is about a looming showdown between a brutal town-taming lawman and a young former outlaw who’s trying to go straight. There’s some very nice action in this story, but it doesn’t come until after Fluharty has explored the complex personalities of several well-rounded characters. This is a superb story, extremely well-written, and it comes to a very satisfying conclusion. Fluharty is another writer who’s pretty inconsistent, in my opinion, but he really nailed this one. I loved it.

The issue wraps up with “Riddle of the Wastelands” by A. Leslie, who was really our old friend Alexander Leslie Scott, of course. This tale is about a young cowboy trying to figure out how the cattle stolen by rustlers are mysteriously disappearing. He does so, of course, and sets a trap for the wideloopers that results in a big gun battle. It’s the sort of thing Scott did countless times, but he does it very well in this one and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Overall, I’d say this is an average issue of TEXAS RANGERS, but you have to remember, “average” for this pulp is pretty darned good. The Hatfield novel is enjoyable, although Germano did better work later on in the series culminating in “Rendezvous at Quito” in the next-to-the-last issue, January 1958, which is one of my all-time favorite Hatfield yarns. The stories by Shirreffs and Scott are dependably good, the ones by Richmond and Kjelgaard somewhat disappointing. But I had a good time reading this one and look forward to reading another issue of TEXAS RANGERS in the near future.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Street & Smith's Western Story, May 24, 1941

This is a pulp that I own and read recently. The cover is by H.W. Scott, and while I normally like Scott’s work quite a bit, this cover strikes me as being pretty drab. It wouldn’t have caught my eye on a newsstand in 1941, I don’t think. However, I read it now because I was in the mood for an issue of STREET & SMITH’S WESTERN STORY, the most venerable of Western pulps. Also, I was curious about the work of Ney N. Geer, an odd name I’d seen before, and he wrote the lead novella in this issue, “Gun Packer By Proxy”.

Geer published 34 stories in a short career that ran from 1936 to 1943. All but two of them were published in STREET & SMITH’S WESTERN STORY, so obviously he found a receptive market there. The two stories published elsewhere were in WESTERN ADVENTURES, also a Street & Smith pulp, and WESTERN TRAILS from Ace. His only series character (13 stories) was someone named Potluck Jones. I haven’t read any of them so I don’t know anything about ol’ Potluck, but I’ll admit, the name doesn’t make me optimistic. Geer had only four books published, Western novels in 1936, ’37, and ’39 and then a Potluck Jones novel (probably a fix-up from some of the pulp stories) published only in England in the early Forties. I found a Ney Napolean Geer, born in Ohio in 1895 and died in Washington in 1974, and feel confident this must be the Western pulpster. But that’s all I was able to come up with about him. Why he stopped writing in 1943 remains a mystery, although it’s possible he could have continued under another name.

His story in this issue starts with gunman Jim Westover in Nevada looking for his twin brother Bob. Bob, who is also a hired gun, has signed on with one side in a range war, but Jim doesn’t know any more details than that. On his way to the town of Silver Butte, he makes a tragic discovery: the body of his brother, bushwhacked and murdered. There are several clues to the killer’s identity. Since they were twins, Jim decides to masquerade as his brother and try to find out what happened. This puts him in the middle of the range war, of course, where he clashes with gunnies on both sides and tangles with some rustlers.

The twin gimmick put me off a little at first, but I stuck with the story and soon got caught up in it. Geer’s writing is smooth and relatively fast-paced. This novella reminded me of the work of the Glidden brothers, better known as Luke Short and Peter Dawson. I thought that maybe I’d found another author well worth looking for . . . and then I got to the ending, which is one of the worst I’ve ever come across in a Western pulp, totally undramatic, an anticlimax that left a bad taste in my mouth. I’d read another story by Geer, but I’d be a little bit leery going into it.

When I was a kid, I loved Jim Kjelgaard’s juvenile novels about dogs but had no idea he was a pulp writer starting out. He specialized in animal stories, and despite my fondness for such when I was young, I have a hard time reading stories like that now. However, I stuck with “Sled Dog Savvy”, Kjelgaard’s short story in this issue and was glad I did. It’s a Northern about a Husky who’s stolen from his master by an unscrupulous trapper and the dog’s struggle to survive and be reunited with the human he loves. It’s a moving, well-written yarn. I wouldn’t want a steady diet of such stories, but I enjoyed this one.

Cherry Wilson was one of the few female authors who contributed prolifically to the Western pulps. A couple of others who come to mind are Eli Colter and C.K. Shaw. The protagonist of Wilson’s story in this issue, “Range of Hate”, has his hands full trying to prevent a war between cattlemen and nesters while at the same time trying to prevent a young man he regards as his surrogate son from turning outlaw. To complicate things, the youngster is the actual son of a woman he once loved, who chose another man over him. The domestic drama is even more complex than that, but that’s enough about it. Wilson does a good job of balancing all those elements and providing a satisfying story, although the ending is pretty bittersweet. I don’t recall ever reading anything by Wilson before, but I certainly would again.

Mojave Lloyd is known to be a pseudonym, but as far as I’m aware, nobody had ever figured out the author’s real identity. I’ve read one or two by him and haven’t cared much for them. So I wasn’t expecting much when I read “Bottle-Neck Boomerang”, his story in this issue. I was very pleasantly surprised by this tale of a Chinese cowboy trying to start his own ranch and being caught between a couple of range hogs. The protagonist is known as Shanghai Sam. He came to the United States to study religion but decided to take off for the tall and uncut and become a cowboy instead. He’s big, burly, and very intelligent, as the clever plot of this story demonstrates. I don’t know if there are any more Shanghai Sam stories, but I’d be happy to read there if there were. It should be noted that some modern readers might be offended by this story, but they really shouldn’t be. Shanghai Sam is a great protagonist and this is a very entertaining story.

Russell A. Bankson is one of those vaguely familiar names to me. And it should be familiar since he wrote hundreds of stories, mostly Westerns, in a career that stretched from 1915 to 1957. But if I’ve ever read anything by him before, I don’t remember it. His story in this issue, “Lawman’s Jackpot”, is about a lawman’s desperate plan to keep from being killed by an outlaw whose younger brother was killed in a shootout with the protagonist. It’s a well-written story and generates a decent amount of suspense.

There’s also a serial installment from the novel THE STAGLINE FEUD by Peter Dawson (Jonathan Glidden). I normally don’t read serial installments in pulps unless I have all of them, and I read the novel version of this one some twenty years ago, so I skipped this one and the usual columns and features on guns, travel, and penpals.

I don’t really know how to rate this issue of STREET & SMITH’S WESTERN STORY. The short stories are all good but not great. I thought the lead novel by Ney N. Geer was excellent until I got to the final two pages that just about ruined it for me. So, was it worth reading? Sure, it’s a Western pulp. I consider reading them time well spent even when an issue isn’t top-notch. But as I’ve said before, don’t rush to your shelves to look for this one.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Argosy, December 2, 1939

I'm pretty sure I've read this issue of ARGOSY, but it was at least twenty years ago, probably longer, and I don't recall anything about it except the nice Rudolph Belarski cover and that I really enjoyed Frank Richardson Pierce's timber novella. Pierce was just about the best at that kind of yarn. Also in this issue are stories by Jim Kjelgaard, Carl Rathjen, Alexander Key, and Robert W. Cochran, plus serial installments by Robert Carse, Johnston McCulley, and Jonathan Stagge (actually the same guys who wrote mysteries under the pseudonyms Patrick Quentin and Q. Patrick, at least part of the time; who wrote what under those names is pretty complicated). ARGOSY always had great covers and great writers. If it just weren't for all those blasted serials . . .   

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Big-Book Western Magazine, February 1941

Yet another example of what should have been a friendly poker game interrupted by gunplay on this issue of BIG-BOOK WESTERN MAGAZINE. Those "2 Big Novels" are actually novellas, of course, but I can't disagree with the "2 Top-Hand Authors" part of that blurb. Given Ed Earl Repp's tendency to use ghostwriters, there's no telling who actually wrote "Boothill Guns Save Satan's Range", but here's the thing: Repp helped plot the ghosted stories and often revised them as well (according to Frank Bonham's famous essay "Tarzana Nights", and as bitter as Bonham was toward Repp, I don't see any reason for him to lie about that), and the ones I've read have all been pretty good no matter who the actual author was. And William L. Hopson, author of "Iron Man of Vengeance Valley" is a long-time favorite of mine. Also on hand in this issue are Tom W. Blackburn, Dee Linford, Jim Kjelgaard, Cliff M. Bisbee, and Le Roy Boyd.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Argosy, May 25, 1940

Rudolph Belarski contributes a nice, action-packed cover to this issue of ARGOSY. As usual, there's an excellent line-up of authors inside, too: Walt Coburn, Carroll John Daly, Jim Kjelgaard, Budd Schulberg, William Du Bois, and Charles T. Jackson. And only two of those pesky serials in this issue (Coburn and Jackson).

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Adventure, September 1946

Under the editorship of Kenneth S. White, ADVENTURE was still a good pulp in the late Forties. In this issue, that starts with a cover by Peter Stevens that I really like, illustrating an oil field story by Thomson Burtis. Also on hand in this issue are William Campbell Gault, Jim Kjelgaard, Joe Archibald, Wilbur S. Peacock, Hal G. Evarts, and Bill Adams, among others. This issue is available on-line here, and I'm intrigued enough that I'll probably read the Burtis story, if nothing else, because of my fondness for oil field yarns. 

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Adventures, August 1941

WESTERN ADVENTURES was Street & Smith's third-string Western pulp after WESTERN STORY and WILD WEST WEEKLY, but it had plenty of good authors and stories in it. This issue features yarns from Brad Buckner (really Ed Earl Repp) and Rolland C. Lynch (rumored to have ghosted for Ed Earl Repp), plus William R. Cox, Nels Leroy Jorgensen, Jim Kjelgaard, M. Howard Lane, and Kenneth L. Sinclair, none of whom have anything to do with Ed Earl Repp, as far as I know.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Short Stories, October 25, 1946

This is a cute cover by A.R. Tilburne, but I'm not sure how well it fits a magazine of two-fisted adventure yarns. However, there are some fine authors, including some of my favorites, in this issue of SHORT STORIES: Dan Cushman, Donald Barr Chidsey, James B. Hendryx (with a Halfaday Creek story), Jim Kjelgaard, Gordon Young, Paul Annixter, and Edward Parrish Ware. The famous "red sun" is barely visible on this one but still there.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Adventure, April 1947

I tell you, this is the way I feel a lot of the time these days: ready to snarl and start bashing things with a shovel. By 1947, ADVENTURE may have been long past its glory days as the top pulp in the business, but it still had some great covers, such as this one by Peter Stevens, and some top-notch authors, represented in this issue by E. Hoffmann Price, Jim Kjelgaard, F.R. Buckley, Robert E. Pinkerton, S. Omar Barker, and Franklin Gregory.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Novel and Short Stories, November 1941

This issue of WESTERN NOVEL AND SHORT STORIES sports a cover by Allen Anderson, an artist I usually associate with Fiction House pulps. No Old Geezer this time, but we get the Stalwart Cowboy and the Gun-Totin' Redhead. (I really should have written a book called LONGARM AND THE GUN-TOTIN' REDHEAD. If the series still existed and I was writing them, I would.) Anyway, this looks like a fine issue of this pulp, with stories by Peter Dawson, Leslie Ernenwein, Clem Colt (who was really Nelson C. Nye), and Jim Kjelgaard, one of the favorite authors of my youth because of all the juvenile novels he wrote about dogs.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Adventures, February 1942

WESTERN ADVENTURES may have been Street & Smith's third-string Western pulp, behind WESTERN STORY and WILD WEST WEEKLY, but I've always thought it had some pretty strong issues. I like the cover on this one, and there's a fine line-up of authors inside including Cliff Farrell, Norman A. Fox, Gunnison Steele, Jim Kjelgaard, S. Omar Barker, and Charles N. Heckelmann.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Western Story, June 29, 1940

As hot as it is this time of year, a nice snowy cover like this one by A. Leslie Ross is quite refreshing. "Blizzard Brotherhood" sounds like a pretty good story, too, although I don't think I've ever read anything by Kenneth Gilbert. There are plenty of other authors I like in this issue of WESTERN STORY, however, including Harry F. Olmsted, Tom Curry, W. Ryerson Johnson, and Jim Kjelgaard.