Glory Riders

by Louis L'Amour

  GLORY RIDERS

  GLORY RIDERS

  A WESTERN SEXTET

  by

  LOUIS L’AMOUR

  Foreword by Jon Tuska

  SKYHORSE PUBLISHING

  First Skyhorse Publishing edition published 2013 by arrangement with Golden West Literary Agency

  Copyright © 2011, 2013 by Louis L’Amour.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  ISBN: 978-1-62087-698-5

  Printed in the United States of America

  Acknowledgments

  “Man Riding West” under the byline Jim Mayo first appeared in West (1/50). Copyright © 1949 by Better Publications, Inc. Copyright not renewed.

  “The Turkeyfeather Riders” under the byline Jim Mayo first appeared in West (5/49). Copyright © 1949 by Better Publications, Inc. Copyright not renewed.

  “Four Card Draw” under the byline Jim Mayo first appeared in Giant Western (2/51). Copyright © 1951 by Best Publications, Inc. Copyright not renewed.

  “Home in the Valley” under the byline Jim Mayo first appeared in Rio Kid Western (8/49). Copyright © 1949 by Better Publications, Inc. Copyright not renewed.

  “West is Where the Heart Is” by Louis L’Amour first appeared in Popular Western (4/51). Copyright © 1951 by Better Publications, Inc. Copyright not renewed.

  “Fork Your Own Broncs” under the byline Jim Mayo first appeared in Thrilling Ranch Stories (5/47). Copyright © 1947 by Standard Magazines, Inc. Copyright not renewed.

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Man Riding West

  The Turkeyfeather Riders

  Four Card Draw

  Home in the Valley

  West Is Where the Heart Is

  Fork Your Own Broncs

  Foreword

  Louis Dearborn LaMoore (1908-1988) was born in Jamestown, North Dakota. He left home at fifteen and subsequently held a wide variety of jobs although he worked mostly as a merchant seaman. From his earliest youth, L’Amour had a love of verse. His first published work was a poem, “The Chap Worth While”, appearing when he was eighteen years old in his former hometown’s newspaper, the Jamestown Sun. It is the only poem from his early years that he left out of SMOKE FROM THIS ALTAR which appeared in 1939 from Lusk Publishers in Oklahoma City, a book which L’Amour published himself; however, this poem is reproduced in THE LOUIS L’AMOUR COMPANION (Andrews and McMeel, 1992) edited by Robert Weinberg. L’Amour wrote poems and articles for a number of small circulation arts magazines all through the early 1930s and, after hundreds of rejection slips, finally had his first story accepted, “Anything for a Pal” in True Gang Life (10/35). He returned in 1938 to live with his family where they had settled in Choctaw, Oklahoma, determined to make writing his career. He wrote a fight story bought by Standard Magazines that year and became acquainted with editor Leo Margulies who was to play an important role later in L’Amour’s life. “The Town No Guns Could Tame” in New Western (3/40) was his first published Western story.

  During the Second World War L’Amour was drafted and ultimately served with the U.S. Army Transportation Corps in Europe. However, in the two years before he was shipped out, he managed to write a great many adventure stories for Standard Magazines. The first story he published in 1946, the year of his discharge, was a Western, “Law of the Desert Born” in Dime Western (4/46). A talk with Leo Margulies resulted in L’Amour’s agreeing to write Western stories for the various Western pulp magazines published by Standard Magazines, a third of which appeared under the byline Jim Mayo, the name of a character in L’Amour’s earlier adventure fiction. The proposal for L’Amour to write new Hopalong Cassidy novels came from Margulies who wanted to launch Hopalong Cassidy’s Western Magazine to take advantage of the popularity William Boyd’s old films and new television series were enjoying with a new generation. Doubleday & Company agreed to publish the pulp novelettes in hard cover books. L’Amour was paid $500 a story, no royalties, and he was assigned the house name Tex Burns. L’Amour read Clarence E. Mulford’s books about the Bar-20 and based his Hopalong Cassidy on Mulford’s original creation. Only two issues of the magazine appeared before it ceased publication. Doubleday felt that the Hopalong character had to appear exactly as William Boyd did in the films and on television and thus the novels in book form had to be revamped to meet with this requirement prior to publication.

  L’Amour’s first Western novel under his own byline was WEST WARD THE TIDE (World’s Work, 1950). It was rejected by every American publisher to which it was submitted. World’s Work paid a flat £75 without royalties for British Empire rights in perpetuity. L’Amour sold his first Western short story to a slick magazine a year later, “The Gift of Cochise” in Collier’s (7/5/52). Robert Fellows and John Wayne purchased screen rights to this story from L’Amour for $4,000 and James Edward Grant, one of Wayne’s favorite screenwriters, developed a script from it, changing L’Amour’s Ches Lane to Hondo Lane. L’Amour retained the right to novelize Grant’s screenplay, which differs substantially from his short story, and he was able to get an endorsement from Wayne to be used as a blurb, stating that HONDO was the finest Western Wayne had ever read. HONDO (Fawcett Gold Medal, 1953) by Louis L’Amour was released on the same day as the film, HONDO (Warner, 1953), with a first printing of 320,000 copies.

  With SHOWDOWN AT YELLOW BUTTE (Ace, 1953) by Jim Mayo, L’Amour began a series of short Western novels for Don Wollheim that could be doubled with other short novels by other authors in Ace Publishing’s paperback two-fers. Advances on these were $800 and usually the author never earned any royalties. HELLER WITH A GUN (Fawcett Gold Medal, 1955) was the first of a series of original Westerns L’Amour had agreed to write under his own name following the success for Fawcett of HONDO. L’Amour wanted even this early to have his Western novels published in hard cover editions. He expanded “Guns of the Timberland” by Jim Mayo in West (9/50) for GUNS OF THE TIMBERLANDS (Jason Press, 1955), a hard cover Western for which he was paid an advance of $250. Another novel for Jason Press followed and then SILVER CAÑON (Avalon Books, 1956) for Thomas Bouregy & Company.

  The great turn in L’Amour’s fortunes came about because of problems Saul David was having with his original paperback Westerns program at Bantam Books. Fred Glidden had been signed to a contract to produce two original paperback Luke Short Western novels a year for an advance of $15,000 each. It was a long-term contract but, in the first ten years of it, Fred only wrote six novels. Literary agent Marguerite Harper then persuaded Bantam that Fred’s brother, Jon, could help fulfill the contract and Jon was signed for eight Peter Dawson Western novels. When Jon died suddenly before completing even one book for Bantam, Harper managed to engage a ghost writer at the Disney studios to write these eight “Peter Dawson” novels, beginning with THE SAVAGES (Bantam, 1959). They proved inferior to anything Jon had ever written and what sales they had
seemed to be due only to the Peter Dawson name.

  Saul David wanted to know from L’Amour if he could deliver two Western novels a year. L’Amour said he could, and he did. In fact, by 1962 this number was increased to three original paperback novels a year. The first L’Amour novel to appear under the Bantam contract was RADIGAN (Bantam, 1958).

  Yet I feel that some of Louis L’Amour’s finest work is to be found in his early magazine fiction. Several of those stories are collected here, reprinted as they first appeared, and possessing the characteristics in purest form that I suspect account in largest measure for the loyal following Louis L’Amour won from his readers: the young male hero who is in the process of growing into manhood and who is evaluating other human beings and his own experiences; a resourceful frontier woman who has beauty as well as fortitude; and the powerful, romantic, strangely compelling vision of the American West that invests L’Amour’s Western fiction and makes it such a delightful escape from the cares of a later time—in this author’s words, that “big country needing big men and women to live in it” and where there was no place for “the frightened or the mean.”

  Jon Tuska

  Man Riding West

  Three men were hunkered down by the fire when Jim Gary walked his buckskin up to their camp in the lee of the cliff. The big man across the fire had a shotgun lying beside him. It was the shotgun that made Gary uneasy, for cowhands do not carry shotguns, especially when on a trail drive, as these men obviously were.

  Early as it was, the cattle were already bedded down for the night in the meadow alongside the stream, and from their looks they had come far and fast. It was still light, but the clouds were low and swollen with rain.

  “How’s for some coffee?” Jim asked as he drew up. “I’m riding through, and I’m sure hungry and tuckered.”

  Somewhere off in the mountains, thunder rolled and grumbled. The fire crackled, and the leaves on the willows hung still in the lifeless air. There were three saddled horses nearby, and among the gear was an old Mother Hubbard-styled saddle with a wide skirt.

  “Light an’ set up.” The man who spoke was lean-jawed and sandy haired. “Never liked to ride on an empty stomach myself.”

  More than ever, Gary felt uneasy. Neither of the others spoke. All were tough-looking men, unshaven and dirty, but it was their hard-eyed suspicion that made Jim wonder. However, he swung down and loosened his saddle girth, and then slipped off the saddle and laid it well back under the overhang of the cliff. As he did so, he glanced again at the old saddle that lay there.

  The overhang of the cliff was deep where the fire was built for shelter from the impending rain. Jim dropped to an ancient log, gray and stripped of bark, and handed his tin plate over to the man who reached for it. The cook slapped two thick slabs of beef on the plate and some frying-pan bread liberally touched with the beef shavings. Gary was hungry and he dived in without comment, and the small man filled his cup.

  “Headed west?” the sandy-haired man asked, after a few minutes. “Yeah, headed down below the rim. Pleasant Valley way.”

  The men all turned their heads toward him but none spoke. Jim could feel their eyes on his tied-down guns. There was a sheep and cattle war in the valley.

  “They call me Red Slagle. These hombres are Tobe Langer and Jeeter Dirksen. We’re drivin’ to Salt Creek.”

  Langer would be the big one. “My name’s Gary,” Jim replied. “Jim Gary. I’m from points yonder. Mostly Dodge and Santa Fe.”

  “Hear they are hiring warriors in Pleasant Valley.”

  “Reckon.” Jim refused to be drawn, although he had the feeling they had warmed to him since he mentioned heading for the valley.

  “Ridin’ thataway ourselves,” Red suggested. “Want to make a few dollars drivin’ cattle? We’re short-handed.”

  “Might,” Gary admitted. “The grub’s good.”

  “Give you forty to drive to Salt Creek. We’ll need help. From here abouts the country is plumb rough, an’ she’s fixin’ to storm.”

  “You’ve hired a hand. When do I start?”

  “Catch a couple of hours’ sleep. Tobe has the first ride. Then you take over. If you need help, just you call out.”

  Gary shook out his blankets and crawled into them. In the moment before his eyes closed, he remembered the cattle had all worn a Double A brand, and the brands were fresh. That could easily be with a trail herd. But the Double A had been the spread that Mart Ray had mentioned.

  *

  It was raining when he rode out to the herd. “They ain’t fussin’,” Langer advised, “an’ the rain’s quiet enough. It should pass mighty easy. See you.”

  He drifted toward the camp, and Gary turned up his slicker collar and studied the herd as well as he could in the darkness. They were lying quietly. He was riding a gray, roped from the small remuda, and he let the horse amble placidly toward the far side of the meadow. A hundred yards beyond the meadow the bulk of the sloping hill that formed the opposite side of the valley showed blacker in the gloom. Occasionally there was a flash of heat lightening, but no thunder.

  Slagle had taken him on because he needed hands, but none of them accepted him. He decided to sit tight in his saddle and see what developed. It could be plenty, for, unless he was mistaken, this was a stolen herd, and Slagle was a thief, as were the others. If this herd had come far and fast, he had come farther and faster, and with just as great a need. Now there was nothing behind him but trouble, and nothing before him but bleak years of drifting ahead of a reputation.

  Up ahead was Mart Ray, and Ray was as much a friend as he had. Gunfighters are admired by many, respected by some, feared by all, and welcomed by none. His father had warned him of what to expect, warned him long ago before he himself had died in a gun battle. “You’re right handy, Son,” he had warned, “one of the fastest I ever seen, so don’t let it be known. Don’t ever draw a gun on a man in anger, and you’ll live happy. Once you get the name of a gunfighter, you’re on a lonesome trail, and there’s only one ending.”

  So he had listened, and he had avoided trouble. Mart Ray knew that. Ray was himself a gunman. He had killed six men of whom Jim Gary knew, and no doubt there had been others. He and Mart had been riding together in Texas and then on a couple of trail drives, one all the way to Montana. He never really got close to Mart, but they had been partners after a fashion.

  Ray had always been amused at his eagerness to avoid trouble, although he had no idea of the cause of it. “Well,” he had said, “they sure cain’t say like father, like son. From all I hear your pappy was an uncurried wolf, an’ you fight shy of trouble. You run from it. If I didn’t know you so well, I’d say you was yaller.”

  But Mart Ray had known him well, for it had been Jim who rode his horse down in front of a stampede to pick Ray off the ground, saving his life. They got free, but no more, and a thousand head of cattle stampeded over the ground where Ray had stood.

  Then, a month before, down in the Big Bend country, trouble had come, and it was trouble he could not avoid. It braced him in a little Mexican cantina just over the river, and in the person of a dark, catlike Mexican with small feet and dainty hands, but his guns were big enough and there was an unleashed devil in his eyes.

  Jim Gary had been dancing with a Mexican girl, and the Mexican had jerked her from his arms and struck her across the face. Jim knocked him down, and the Mexican got up, his eyes fiendish. Without a word, the Mexican went for his gun, and for a frozen, awful instant Jim saw his future facing him, and then his own hand went down and he palmed his gun in a flashing, lightning draw that rapped out two shots. The Mexican, who had reached first, barely got his gun clear before he was dead. He died on his feet, and then fell.

  In a haze of powder smoke and anguish, Jim Gary had wheeled and strode from the door, and behind him lay a dead and awful silence. It was not until two days later that he knew who and what he had killed. The lithe-bodied Mexican had been Miguel Sonoma, and he had been a legend along the border. A
tough, dangerous man with a reputation as a killer.

  Two nights later, a band of outlaws from over the border rode down upon Gary’s little spread to avenge their former leader, and two of them died in the first blast of gunfire, a matter of handguns at pointblank range. From the shelter of his cabin, Gary had fought them off for three days before the smoke from his burning barn attracted help. When the help had arrived, Jim Gary was a man with a name. Five dead men lay on the ground around the ranch yard and in the desert nearby. The wounded had been carried away. And the following morning, Jim turned his ranch over to the bank to sell and lit a shuck—away from Texas.

  Of this, Mart Ray knew nothing. Half of Texas and all of New Mexico, or most of it, would lie behind him when Jim reached the banks of Salt Creek. Mart Ray was ramrodding the Double A, and he would have a job for him.

  Jim Gary turned the horse and rode slowly back along the side of the herd. The cattle had taken their midnight stretch and, after standing around a bit, were lying down once more. The rain was falling, but softly, and Gary let the gray take his own time in skirting the herd.

  The night was pitch dark. Only the horns of the cattle glistened with rain, and their bodies were darker blobs in the blackness of the night. Once, drawing up near the willows along the stream, Jim thought he detected a vague sound. He waited a moment, listening. On such a night nobody would be abroad who could help it, and it was unlikely that a mountain lion would be on the prowl, although possible.

  He started on again, yet now his senses were alert, and his hand slid under his slicker and touched the butt of a .44. He was almost at the far end of the small herd when a sudden flash of lightning revealed the hillside across the narrow valley.

  Stark and clear, glistening with rain, sat a horseman. He was standing in his stirrups, and seemed amazingly tall, and in the glare of the flash his face was stark white, like the face of a fleshless skull.

  Startled, Gary grunted and slid his gun into his hand, but all was darkness again, and, listen as he could, he heard no further sound. When the lightning flashed again, the hillside was empty and still. Uneasily he caught himself staring back over his shoulder into the darkness, and he watched his horse. The gray was standing, head up and ears erect, staring off toward the darkness near the hill. Riding warily, Gary started in that direction, but when he got there, he found nothing.