WESTERN TRAILS - June 1936

WESTERN TRAILS
June 1936, Vol. XXIII, No. 1
Magazine Publishers, Inc.
Editor A.A. Wyn, Associate Editor Harry Widmer
Cover art by William Fulton Soare

This pulp magazine first appeared in October 1928 and ran for 124 issues, this last issue being published in April 1949. I don’t believe there were any British editions.

The opening novelette is Kid Thunderbolt by Frederick C. Davis. This is the second of six stories he wrote for Western Trails featuring The Jingling Kid. When Jingle finds a notorious dying killer, Kid Thunderbolt, the lightning-fast gunman gives Jingle his guns, horse, hat and instantly recognizable vest and asks him to pretend to be him and help a young woman who has asked for his help. Jingle accepts these gifts and mission. Jingle is a no-account drifter, a young man scorned and ridiculed by others, but know under his new persona he relishes in the adulation he receives and finds a new confidence in himself and sets out to help Donna Dexter. 

The story is fast moving, contains mystery as to who is killing Donna’s ranch hands with knives in the back. It also seems there’s a traitor among Donna’s crew as the enemy seem to be one step ahead of them. There’s plenty of action – gunplay, a jailbreak, a town on fire and chase sequences. I was waiting throughout for someone to expose this new Kid Thunderbolt as an imposter and I got my wish. I haven’t read anything by Davis before this, and found Kid Thunderbolt to be a very entertaining read and look forward to reading another soon. 

Double-Cross Brands by L.P. Holmes is next. Holmes was a prolific author for the pulps with around 600 being published, most of which were westerns. He also had many paperbacks published too. Going by how many stories he wrote, and how long I’ve been reading westerns, it may come as a surprise when I tell you I haven’t read anything by him before. 

Double-Cross Brand features the much-used plot of a young man and a young woman in love with each other but unable to act on these feelings due to being son and daughter of families that have been involved in a very long-running feud that began before either of them was born. When Jerry Bennett is offered his father’s ranch with the provision that he keeps the feud going Bennett refuses the gift, saying he wants to end the feud so he can be with Arlie Condon. When calves belonging to each side are discovered wearing the oppositions brand accusations fly thick and fast and it looks like the feud isn’t due to end anytime soon. Jerry sets out to solve the mystery of the branded calves and end the feud. Yes, everything played out as I expected but I had great fun reading it and am now eager to try another story by Holmes.  

The third story is another novelette, Destiny Rides the Lobo Pass by Peter Germane. Peter Germane is a thinly disguised pseudonym used by Peter Germano before he switched to the now much better-known penname of Barry Cord. Under the Germane name he had around twenty stories published in a variety of western pulp magazines.  

Destiny Rides the Lobo Pass is a gritty tale with a dark theme of a father being set up to kill his son who he thought dies years ago. The son believes an outlaw is his father and rides with him and his gang. Both are extremely fast draws and the father has become known as Senor Death of the years. This twisting tale provides a gripping read as Germane builds the tension to snapping point. There’s plenty of gunplay, an exciting knife fight, and a kidnapping. Hatred fuels many of the cast of characters with Senor Death being driven by the thirst for revenge too. The story has a bittersweet ending. This has to be one of my favourite tales I’ve read by Peter Germano. 

Hellion’s Lash by Phil Richards is a short story by an author unknown to me. An escaped prisoner, Randen, tries to discover why his friend helped frame him for murder but is forced to kill him. This makes Randen even more determined to find the person behind his prison sentence. For such a short story, Richards involves a lot of people, meaning I had to pay attention to who was who and why they were included in the tale. The story involves a judge and his daughter (who’s sweet on Randen), lawmen, wealthy businessmen, prison guards (one who’s very handy with a whip), and bounty hunters. With so much going on I found it hard to connect with any of the characters but was intrigued enough to read on as I wanted to see how Randen cleared his name and who the bad guy was. Hellion’s Lash was an ok read but I doubt I’ll be hunting out more of Richards’ yarns anytime soon.

After Hellion’s Lash, and presumably just included to fill the second half of a page, comes an account of a tale of an extraordinary roping feat by a man called Don Manuel Acuna. This piece doesn’t have a writer’s name attached to it. This true story or completely fictional tale stretches belief a lot. If it is true then damn, it’s amazing. If fictional it’s ‘is that possible even in your wildest dreams?’

Next, we have a three-page true story King Fisher by Charles Kenmore Ulrich. This is subtitled Romances of the Old Frontier No. 21. As you’d expect this is told in a factual way and covers Fisher’s life from a young age until his death. The author adds some imagined dialogue which brings some life to this historical article that got me interested in reading more about King Fisher. According to an information box, Ulrich only wrote about people he’d met in person. 

Boot-Hill Carnival by Clyde A. Warden is a novelette featuring the author’s series character Bert Little. Warden wrote 78 stories starring Little, all of which were published in Western Trails.

Colonel Andrew Dexter makes the mistake of trying to hire Little for his guns but Little refuses as he doesn’t kill for money. Unsurprisingly, Little gets involved anyway after an attempt on his life. This story is about making Barry Sanders pay for murdering the brother of Dexter, so this is a revenge tale that, of course, includes a pretty girl who is the daughter of the dead man. Little finds himself riding alongside a man called Cactus, who has a rep as a troublemaker. There’s plenty of gunplay as Little and Cactus try to track down Sanders. The story played out pretty much as I expected until the end where twist upon twist that took me completely by surprise turning a routine yarn into so much more. 

Boot-Hill Carnival was a very readable story with a memorable ending that left me looking forward to read more tales about Bert Little soon. One thing that confused me though was the title as Boot-Hill doesn’t feature in the story and neither does a carnival. Maybe the editors didn’t like Warden’s original title and changed it without reading the story? I guess that’s something we’ll never find out 90 years after this magazine was published. 

We then get two regular columns that I didn’t read. These being July Roundup of Western Trails which tells readers what they can look forward to in the next issue, and Stampede by Powder River Bill, which is a few pages of letters asking for pen pals.

Six-Gun Shadows by Carl Mck. Saunders brings this issue of Western Trails to a close. It’s a short story about a man called Andy Hall who steals the loot from outlaws. We meet him just after he’s run off with the money from a train robbery and is being hunted by the furious thieves, which is a big problem for Hall as he doesn’t have any bullets in his guns. Carl Mck. Saunders is a pseudonym used by Philip L. Ketchum and on the strength of this short story I would certainly read him again even though the twist in this tale was easy to spot coming and me not being a fan of ‘in-the-nick-of-time’ endings. 

This issue of Western Trails was a very enjoyable read with all the stories holding my attention well and it has me wanting to read my only other copy of this magazine as soon as I can. 

THE ORACLE OF THE MONTANA MOUNTAINS

 

THE BALLED OF A WESTERING MAN
Book 2 of 2
ORACLE OF THE MONTANA MOUNTAINS
By Bill Yenne
DS Productions, May 2026

If madness can be defined in an allegory, there are few allegories more apt than Gideon Safford’s blind obsession with crossing the Continental Divide on the cusp of a Montana winter. This westering man survives certain death in one blizzard only to find himself making a promise to brave further hardships— and bullets— to locate an enigmatic woman with eyes like a blizzard who has become an oracle.

The traveling Jesuit missionary who saves his life brings Safford to a Blackfeet camp on the Marias River. There, Safford hears the tale of a young woman who is believed by many to possess great, even magical, powers of insight. She was kidnapped and sold to people across the Divide, and her own people, especially her sister, want her back.

Because of her strange eyes, which once seen are never forgotten, this oracle has become a mysterious object of wonder, speculation and avarice on both sides of the Divide, a woman about whom people speak only in whispers.

This book is a reissue of one I always meant to read but never got around to doing so. This new publication sees it published under a new title – previously it came out as Eyes Like a Blizzard back in 2022. I do wonder if it had an earlier publication under yet a third title as this is what happened to the first book which originally appeared in 2019 under the title Vultures Over the Elk Fork Country. This was republished in 2022 as Death Stalks the Mountains. In 2025 it had another title change and is now known as Racing the Snows Across the Great Divide. I have no idea if any of the publications have seen the books rewritten in any way. You can read my review of the first book here.

Full of engaging characters, this book soon had me hooked as I wanted to know if the woman, Máakai, Safford had agreed to deliver a message to could be found, and if Safford did succeed in tracking her down would she really have magical powers? Yenne descriptions of Máakai are excellent and you can’t help but share the emotional turmoil she goes through.

The story challenges the thought of owning someone. To buy and sell people. It’s a story about greed. 

The book is fairly short. The plot moves forward at a swift pace, building to its conclusion with ever increasing tension as Safford and Máakai are pursued across the Divide by more people than they know about during which they have to struggle to survive a blizzard, before everyone comes together for a final showdown. The action scenes are well described and are fairly graphic at times. 

Does the white-eyed Máakai have magic powers? I guess you’ll just have to read the book to find out. 

It's been a long time since I read the first Gideon Safford tale and I’m very glad I finally read the second book as it proved to be a very enjoyable. I’ve seen mention of a third book, You Can’t Outrun Your Past, which was published in 2022. Hopefully that will be republished soon, and if it is, you can bet I’ll be reading it. 

American readers can get a copy here.

British readers can get a copy here.

STRONG MEDICINE

 

HOLMES ON THE RANGE
STRONG MEDICINE
By Steve Hockensmith
Rough Edges Press, July 2026

The A.A. Western Detective Agency rides into Galveston in 1894 Texas, a city of elegant Victorian mansions and dark waterfront secrets, when a wealthy businessman burns to death in his own warehouse under far-too-convenient circumstances.

With Big Red and Old Red Amlingmeyer on the case, Old Red’s obsession with Sherlock Holmes is finally put to the ultimate test. Their client’s household is crawling with suspects: a brilliant female scientist, an eccentric would-be snake-oil salesman, a volatile socialite, and a charismatic “healer” whose devoted followers will do anything she demands.

As blackmail, madness, and murder tangle beneath Galveston’s gleaming surface, the detectives must separate miracle from menace before the killer delivers another dose of strong medicine.

With threats closing in from every direction, can the Double-A Western Detective Agency smoke out the truth before the next victim goes up in flames?

The last full-length Holmes on the Range book came out in 2023 and a couple of short story collections followed in the same year. The latest novel, Strong Medicine, has links to the previous book in that the Amlingmeyer brothers have agreed to help one of the characters from Hunters of the Dead and are soon involved with a wonderful set of people and creatures as they attempt to solve crimes of murder and blackmail. 

Steve Hockensmith tells his fast-moving tale through the voice of Big Red whose observations on the investigation and life in general had me howling with laughter many times, as did one of the action scenes involving flying vegetables. Descriptions are excellent too and painted very visual images in my mind’s eye – the gardeners and their overseer being particularly vivid. 

I must point out that this is not a comedy western/murder mystery novel. It’s a captivating, twisting, thrilling story that includes humour. There are plenty of tense scenes, one involving scorpions and another seeing the Amlingmeyer brothers on the wrong end of a gun. 

I am purposefully being vague with details about the plot and characters as I just don’t want to spoil anything for those intending to read this terrific edition to the Holmes on the Range series. 

As usual, I gave up trying to work out the who and why of the plot as Steve Hockensmith is extremely good at pointing the finger at just about everyone the Amlingmeyer’s meet. Seemingly meaningless comments and actions will later be revealed as major clues to solving the mysteries facing the brothers, something they will do, no matter the cost to themselves. Oh, and could one of them be falling in love? And then there’s the question of whether nut-butter made from peanuts could ever catch on.

As you’ve probably guessed, I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to all readers who enjoy whodunit stories. 

American readers can get a copy here.

British readers can get a copy here.