By Jim Griffin
[Editor’s note: The Pulp Rack’s contributing equine expert and pulp collector, Jim Griffin, provides this succinct description of the various continuing characters that populated the Texas Rangers pulp magazine.]
In addition to Texas Ranger Jim Hatfield, the main character in each issue of Texas Rangers Magazine, several other characters appeared fairly regularly, some in the Hatfield novels, others in their own stories. I'll begin with the characters from the Jim Hatfield novels.
First and foremost was Jim's commanding officer, Captain Bill McDowell. "Cap'n Bill" appeared, or was referred to, in every one of the Jim Hatfield stories. The character was based on a compilation of several real-life Texas Ranger captains, most notably Captain William "Roaring Bill" MacDonald, who was commander of the Texas Rangers in the earlier part of the 20th century. MacDonald was a fine Ranger, but he was also as much of a politician, showman, and publicity hound as he was lawman.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, after some debate, Jim Hatfield -- the "Lone Wolf" -- was given a girlfriend, Anita Robertson, and her teenaged brother, Buck, as a sidekick. With an intense debate developing among the readers of Texas Rangers, both pro and con as to giving Jim a permanent girlfriend, then a wife, the characters continued for several stories, and then just disappeared. Poor Jim Hatfield, throughout his long career as a Texas Ranger, was more celibate than a monk. Interestingly, of all the writers penning Jim Hatfield stories under the Jackson Cole house name, only Tom Curry made the attempt to give the Lone Wolf Ranger a girlfriend. He was the only author to incorporate the Robertsons into his Hatfield novels.
Roe Richmond, in several of the Jim Hatfield novels he wrote under the Jackson Cole house name, gave the Lone Wolf three sidekicks, Rangers Milt Travis, Red Bouchard, and Fox Edley. Those three partners were even less popular than Anita and Buck Robertson, and were never used by any other author of the Hatfield novels.
Finally, in several of the Jim Hatfield tales, actual historical figures from the Old West appear, most notably in some of the Richmond stories. Wyatt Earp and his brothers, Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, Bill Hickock, and others would pop up on occasion in a Hatfield story, sometimes alone, sometimes as a whole group. Usually the appearance occurred without rhyme or reason, and often their appearance would have required traveling through a time warp. Little attention was paid to historical or timeline accuracy, as long as those famous names could be tossed into the tale.
Throughout the publication history of Texas Rangers Magazine, several other characters appeared sporadically in their own short stories.
Louis L'Amour's Texas Ranger character, Chick Bowdrie, appeared in the magazine at least once. Bowdrie is not one of my particular favorites, as he used his horse as a tool, and their relationship was truly adversarial. Bowdrie, as written by L'Amour, barely even bothered to care for his mount. Anyone who depends on his horse on a long-term basis would never act that way. L'Amour missed the mark with Bowdrie.
In several issues, Ben Frank had stories about comic characters, Sheriff Boo Boo Bounce and his Deputy, Hopewell. The stories were written from Hopewell's view, and usually involved the hapless Boo Boo getting into trouble. The stories were basically long comic strips, put into prose. The illustrations that accompanied the stories were crudely drawn cartoons, rather than the usual detailed depictions of action that illustrated the dramatic novels and stories in the magazine.
Doc Swap, another character written by Ben Frank, appeared in quite a number of Texas Rangers Magazines. Swap traveled the countryside, an itinerant trader. The plots of the Doc Swap tales were fairly simple: Doc would outwit, usually by clever swapping, the bad guys. From my viewpoint, neither of Frank's characters, Boo Boo Bounce or Doc Swap, were very well written. However, Doc Swap, at least, was very popular among the readers of Texas Rangers. In letters to "The Frontier Post," the quasi-editorial column of the magazine, there were always several asking for more of Doc Swap, and less of Long Sam Littlejohn, the next, and final, character to be discussed. Of course, there were always just as many letters asking for more Littlejohn, and less Swap.
Long Sam Littlejohn, by Lee Bond, appeared in more issues of Texas Rangers Magazine than any of the other recurring characters, except, of course, Jim Hatfield and Captain Bill McDowell themselves. In fact, the character appeared in the very first issue of Texas Rangers, the October 1936 Volume 1, Number 1, issue, in a short story called "Outlaw's Lead Tally."
The plots of the Littlejohn stories never varied. Long Sam was extremely tall and lanky, with thick yellow hair and gray eyes. He invariably was dressed in black from head to foot, and rode an extremely ugly roan horse named Sleeper, which could, nonetheless, outrun and outlast any other horse in the Southwest. Unjustly outlawed, Littlejohn was constantly on the run from short, fat Joe Fry, a deputy U.S. Marshal, who looked like a drummer in his checked suit, derby hat, and button shoes, with a cigar chomped between his teeth. Sam was a friend to some lawmen, including most of the Texas Rangers, but an enemy to others.
With Fry always close behind him, Sam would just about reach safety, usually just about making it across the border into Mexico, when he would come across someone, often a woman or kid, being accosted by real outlaws. Sam would stop to help, there'd be a gunfight, usually Sam would turn the tables on the bad guys, then Fry would show up, capture Sam, and let the real outlaws loose. Then, Sam would have to escape Fry, catch up to and kill the outlaws, and usually turn their ill-gotten gains over to their victims.
While the plots of the Long Sam Littlejohn stories never varied, the tales were usually pretty well written. Sam always whistled a range dirge just before, and during, his showdowns with the outlaws. The gunfights in the Littlejohn stories were usually fairly graphic, with quite a bit of spurting, blood, bulging eyes, and belly shootings. Sam generally came out of the gunfights pretty well shot up himself, and had to flee before he could get patched up, lest Joe Fry catch up to him. The longevity of the Long Sam Littlejohn character proves that, next to Jim Hatfield, these were the most popular of the stories in Texas Rangers Magazine.
While there may be another character or two who appeared in Texas Rangers Magazine more than once, they were not published often enough to warrant a mention in this article. I mention Louis L'Amour's Chick Bowdrie only because L'Amour himself had several stories published in Texas Rangers Magazine, a few under his own name, but most under the pseudonym Jim Mayo.
LINKS:
Jim Griffin’s other articles on The Pulp Rack:
“Horses in the West: Reality versus Fiction”
“Kirby Jonas: Contemporary Western Writer”
Posted by ds at December 19, 2003 02:03 PM
