The Haunted Legion: A Walt Slade Pulp Story by Bradford Scott

A little under a month ago, I discovered Walt Slade, El Halcon, the Texas Ranger extraordinaire as chronicled by prolific author Bradford Scott (aka A. Leslie Scott). It was a chance meeting, Slade and I, in an antique store in Jefferson, Texas. The book was FOUR MUST DIE, which, as it turned out—thanks to some excellent background from James Reasoner—was the one book in the paperback series not written by Scott. But I loved the character so I immediately followed-up by reading KILLER’S DOOM, another novel in the paperback series, this time actually written by Scott himself.

But Walt Slade got his start in the pulps. He was an honest-to-God pulp hero, his adventures gracing most covers of Thrilling Western. If you read James Reasoner’s short history of this character, you’ll learn Scott took Slade out of the pulps and reformulated him for the emerging paperback book audience. Having read two novels—with dozens more to go—I was quite curious about one of his pulp stories.

Last week, I stopped into one of the local Bedrock City comic stores here in Houston because I knew the owner sold pulps. I hoped he would have any issue of Thrilling Western and I was in luck. He had a handful and I bought the May 1947 issue. The Walt Slade story in question was “The Haunted Legion”—and the cover font was that old scary font from the 1940s! What was the pulp version of Slade like?

Well, what immediately jumped out at me were the illustrations. As usual with the pulps, pencil illustrations accompanied nearly every story. With “The Haunted Legion” being the cover story, it had more than a few. I’m not sure who the illustrator was, but his take on Slade was pretty much as described by Scott and how I pictured him. So far, so good.

As the story being, Slade is down at Matagorda Bay, Texas, and before you know it, we get ourselves a story. It’s told by an old Mexican who relates the tale of Black Mora. And when I say he tells the story, I’m talking almost a full first chapter in which the POV actually switching to Mora himself and the legend of this pirate captain and the ghosts that walk the region. Twas a tad odd, but it certainly captured the mood, especially considering Bradford Scott’s penchant for flowery descriptions.

No sooner does Slade hear this story than his eyes catch sight of a group of men on horseback. It’s stormy and he only sees them when the lightening flashes once. The next time electricity illuminates the sky, they are gone. But there is also a major bonfire. A nearby house and barn are engulfed in flames. How? And might the two things be related?

Well, of course they are.

A key difference in this pulp story versus the paperback stories literally jumped off the page: language. In “The Haunted Legion,” Slade talks just like most other characters, and Bradford Scott writes the dialogue using phonically spelled words: Figger, mebbe, yuh, etc. I don’t remember Slade’s dialogue being that way in the two books I’ve read so far. It made Slade seem dumber and, frankly, it irritated me a little. I got used to it, but I guess I just like my heroes to sound smart.

There’s a good dose of gunfights and action, but there was a surprising level of mere investigation. Like a good traditional mystery, Bradford Scott laid out the clues for the reader and the clever one might have been able to deduce the culprit. I didn’t, but then I wasn’t trying to. But Slade gets to tell the local sheriff—another dumb lawman, but one who is loyal to Slade—all the clues that led him to discover the owlhoot. Were it not for his clothes, Slade could easily have come across as a detective from England. It was clever and wrapped up the story neatly.

All the traits that readers enjoy about Slade is on display here, including his fast guns, clever brain, and singing voice. He is a very enjoyable character and I’ll happily be reading more of his adventures. I liked the short form of this story pretty well. It’s an eight-chapter story, and, in true pulp form, each chapter has three sub-sections. They are easily identified by a large first letter and small caps in the first couple of words. It’s pure formula, but when you like something, you can simply consume it and be satisfied. I was satisfied with “The Haunted Legion,” and I may have to make a return trip back to Bedrock City and buy the rest of the magazines.

Killer's Doom: A Walt Slade Western by Bradford Scott

I first made the acquaintance with Walt Slade a couple of weeks ago on my vacation up to East Texas. Then, it was a novel I picked out at random from a wonderful antique store in Jefferson, Texas, and read most of on the vacation itself. I enjoyed FOUR MUST DIE so much that I sought out more Walt Slade westerns. Turns out I already owned one in my large collection of old paperbacks I inherited from my grandfather.

KILLER’S DOOM was that book and man what a title. And it’s a pretty nifty cover, too. The back description leads off with a banner headline: “Catch Covelo!” That is the underlying plot of this novel.

Slide is out west in El Paso and he’s received a threatening letter:

“El Halcon, you will not catch Juan Covelo, but some day Juan Covelo will catch you, and then for you it will be muy malo! Muy malo!”

For those that don’t know, El Halcon is Slade nickname. It means the Hawk, likely because he has such good eyesight. Anyway, Covelo is a legend in the area for he rides around with a great black hood over his face, committing all sorts of horrible crimes and violence upon his victims. Slade correctly reckons it is to hide the bad guy’s true identity so he takes up the case.

Covelo has a gang of owlhoots riding with him, eight if I remember correctly. What makes this novel so grand is watching over Slade’s shoulder as he investigates, gathers evidence, fights, shoots, and whittles down the gang number until there is only Covelo left. That's not a spoiler. That's a western trope, one with which I have zero problem.

When I mentioned to my dad that I had read that first Slade book, he immediately started rattling off all the traits Slade was known for: his horse, Shadow, his singing, his rapid fire shooting, his eyes. I was taken aback with the mention of singing. A singing cowboy? In a book? In FOUR MUST DIE, not all of those were apparent. They were all there in KILLER’S DOOM, including the singing.

Shadow, the horse, was also on full display. I got a sense of his character the first time I met him, but in KILLER’S DOOM, he actually talks! Well, not really, but he and Slade have such a good camaraderie that author Bradford Scott (really A. Leslie Scott; click here for some background) actually wrote dialogue for Shadow, then followed it up with something like “…his snort seemed to say.” Charming.

KILLER’S DOOM also introduces the reader to a past villain, one that Slade already brought to justice. It was nice to see that the author understood weaving ongoing threads throughout this long series even back in the day when each book seemed to stand on its own.

I enjoyed KILLER’S DOOM about as much as FOUR MUST DIE--maybe a tad more--and I really love the character of Walt Slade. I have already started my third Slade western in a row!

When it comes to westerns and western writing, there are still things, techniques, and terminology I need to learn. As part of my education, I read with a pencil in my hand and circle various words and phrases I see over and over again. From there, I extract them into my own files and read them over before and during the writing of my own westerns. Here’s a sample two page spread.

I highly recommend the Walt Slade westerns. Now that I know what to look for (hat tip to James Reasoner), I have spotted them in just about every used bookstore I’ve entered in the past few weeks. I love discovering a new-to-me series in which I get to scour bookstores in the coming months and years hoping to find yet another Walt Slade adventure.

Four Must Die: A Walt Slade Western by Bradford Scott

On a recent trip to East Texas, I stopped in Jefferson, Texas, and scoured a few antique stores. I found a motherlode of old paperback westerns, maybe two hundred or more, all for a dollar each. The issue was which ones to buy? I didn’t need any L’amour or Gray or Short, so I started judging the books by the cover art and cover blurb. FOUR MUST DIE was branded a Walt Slade Western. Something tickled the back of my brain enough that I bought it and read it on my vacation.

And I’m glad I did. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.

As I am wont to do—please tell me I’m not alone in what I’m about to tell y’all—I saw a book by an author I’ve read and know (James Reasoner’s Death Head Crossing) so I propped it up for the next buyer to see. So charmed with myself, I took a picture and sent it to James. He thanked me, and then promptly started telling me about the other books in the photo! I told him via email that I very nearly called him to discuss what I was seeing because he has forgotten more about westerns than I’ll probably ever know.

He was the one who told me that FOUR MUST DIE was the last of the paperback originals in this series and the only one not written by Walt Slade’s creator, Leslie Scott. The real author of FOUR MUST DIE was Tom Curry, a fellow author who penned some Jim Hatfield novels prior to this. I have come to the conclusion that if there’s an old-school pulp writer that I want to learn a bit about—especially if it’s a western—all I have to do is google the author’s name and James’s name and there will likely be a blog post. Here’s one for some background on Leslie Scott.

Back to today’s forgotten book. FOUR MUST DIE shows Texas Ranger Walt Slade skulking around El Paso searching for Barney Hale, an outlaw with a peculiar set of instructions: he needs to kill four seemingly random men in the region. Slade muscles his way into Hale’s good graces and convinces the owlhoot that, Slade, can get the job done in half the time. Hale agrees, and Slade sets his plan in motion.

He knows these four men—the editor of the newspaper, a cattleman with land north of town, a worker in the land office, and the owner of a smelting plant—and gets them to vanish for a time until Slade can get to the bottom of this whole shebang. There’s an oily attorney, the Honorable Alton Z. Carson, behind the scheme that even Slade can’t figure out until a single word is uttered: “Gold.”
What follows is a flat-out joyride of a western. Slade is a fun character, quick on the draw and even quicker with his wits. He is tough as nails, but isn’t above actual manual labor in order to root out the bad guys. And I love his horse, Shadow. There’s a unique beast with a special way he runs when the bullets start zinging past them.

You remember me mentioning that tickling I had in the back of my brain when I saw FOUR MUST DIE in the store? Well, that’s because I inherited a Walt Slade book from my grandfather. I’ll be getting to that book next.

As James wrote to me, this was the last of the Walt Slade westerns. Fittingly, the last paragraph reads thus: "With a wave of his slim hand, Walt Slade mounted Shadow, and they [the men left behind] him ride away, to where duty called and high adventure beckoned." That's a great way to end a series...and a perfect starting point for someone like me.

FOUR MUST DIE is a well-written western and if it’s any indication of the type of story of all the other Walt Slade oaters out there, I just found me a new series to collect.

BTW, if you're interested, here is the photo I sent to James.