SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: ATTACK OF THE BANDITO HORDE

"Attack of the Bandito Horde" by "Romer Zane Grey" (house name used this time by Bill Pronzini & Jeffrey N. Wallman; first published in Zane Grey Western Magazine, August 1971; reprinted in the collection Gun Trouble in Tonto Basin, 1984?, as by Romer Zane Grey)

Romer Zane Grey (1909-1976) was the eldest son of writer Zane Grey.  He was a scenario writer for Paramount Pictures and the production of films based on his father's novels.  He evidently wrote the Big Little Book based on Zane Grey's King of the Royal Mounted comic strip.  Although Wikipedia credits him as the author of the stories about various characters created by his father -- Arizona Ames, Laramie Nelson, Buck Duane, Yaqui, Burn Hundell, Nevada Jim Lacy, Jim Cleve, Judkins, and Al Slingerland -- for Leo Margulies's Zane Grey Western Magazine, 1969-1974, the name was most likely licensed to the magazine and the 31stories credited to him were ghost-written by a number of authors, including Tom Curry, Clayton Matthews, and Bill Pronzini and Jeff Wallman.  Pronzini & Wallman wrote five of the seven stories about Arizona Ames for the magazine; the remaining two stories are uncredited.  They also penned the single story about Yaqui that appeared in the magazine.

(Margulies was a prolific publisher, editor and writer of pulp stories.  Among the magazines that appeared in his stable during this period were Mike (Michael) Shayne Mystery Magazine, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine, Charlie Chan Mystery Magazine, Shell Scott Mystery Magazine, and Satellite Science Fiction; many of these were ostensibly edited by his wife, Sylvia Kleinman.  The Margulies magazine should not be conflated with Zane Grey's Western Magazine, a digest published by Dell and edited by Don Ward, which ran from November 1946 to January 1954 for a total of 82 issues, each of which featured a story [usually an abridged novel] by Grey; an abridged version of Arizona Ames ran in that magazine in the December 1947 issue.)

Arizona Ames was the title character in a 1932 novel (magazine serialization, 1929-1930) by Grey.  Rich Ames had his reputation as a gunfighter forced upon him when two men roughed up ( a polite phrase, I believe, for raped) his sister.  Rich reached for his gun and, when the smoke cleared, the two men were dead.  Ames had to flee the law and his home in Tonto Basin.  His reputation for his lightning-fast draw grew over the years and his name struck fear into the hearts of bad men all over the west.

For the past six months, several Mexican states had been rocked by a large bands of guerillas, lead by the charismatic Juan Valdez, in an effort to overthrow the government of Mexico.  Recently, eleven town in Arizona and New Mexico territories and Texas had been pillaged by marauders from the south, screaming, "Viva Valdez!"  At least thirty-two Americans -- men and women -- had been killed, inflaming passions along the border and causing vigilantes to attack innocent Mexicans.  It the situation continued, the United States and Mexico could be forced into another war.  Evidence pointed to the marauders setting up a base within the United States, in Arizona's Galliuro  Mountains.  To prevent the outbreak of war, a high-stakes diplomatic conference was to be held in Prescott with Carlos Mantigua, a special emissary of the President of Mexico.  Arizona Ames, after fifteen years as a wanted outlaw, and after a pardon by Arizona's governor, is now a secret agent employed by the governor.  He has been tasked to led the group of Rangers escorting Mantigua to Prescott.

Now, just forty miles from the border, half a dozen banditos have forcibly kidnapped Mantigua and slaughtered all six members of his honor guard.  Ames managed to shoot and kill one of the banditos while they made their escape, but the dead man, although dressed as a ragged Mexican peasant, appeared to be an American.  So too, another man who later attempted to kill Ames at the livery stable. The question in Ames's mind is, are these marauders truly part of Valdez's revolution, or are they a rogue band acting on their own?

Later that night, a beautiful girl claiming to be Mantigua's daughter. gets the drop on Ames and knocks him unconscious.  (Ames evidently has a thing for beautiful women.)  He wakes up, heavily bound, in a wagon heading for the secret mountain camp of the insurrectionists.  The woman who claimed to be Mantigua's daughter was actually the daughter of a truly sincere revolutionary; she and her father had been ordered to bring Ames to their secret lair.  But why?

The questions mount when Ames realizes that the hideout is not filled with idealistic revolutionaries, but with cutthroats and killers. Then Ames meets the leader of these marauders...and it is Mantigua!  The emissary is playing his own game, working to provoke an all-out war between the two countries, a war that he would be able to stop, becoming a hero to his people, and giving him more power and wealth that one could imagine.

Again, why kidnap Ames?  And how can Ames stop what seems bound to happen?  And how can this be done in the less than forty pages left in the novelette?

An interesting, fast-reading, pulpish take on a character who himself was originally pretty pulpish.  Not great literature, but a very entertaining tale.  Of interest to both Zane Grey fans and fans of Pronzini and Wallman (and count me as one).

Bill Pronzini (b. 1943) is best known as the author of the long-running acclaimed mystery series featuring the "Nameless Detective."  He is both an MWA Grand Master and the Recipient of the Private Eye Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award, the Eye.  He has published more than 125 books and edited over 100 anthologies.  Jeffrey N. Wallman (b. 1941) collaborated with Pronzini on many early novels, including the western Dual at Gold Buttes (which Pronzini's wife, Marcia Muller, once vowed was the only book by Pronzini she refused to read).  Early in the writing careers of both, Pronzini & Wallman collaborated on at least fifteen softcore paperback originals under such pseudonyms as "William Davis," "Elizabeth Watson,' "Agnes Williams," "Mark Townsend," "R. Van Dorne,' Roger Grayson," "Peter Jenson," "Aston Marlowe," "Grant Roberts," and "Richard Mountbatten." ; copies of these are nearly impossible to time, which is probably just as well.

The Arizona Ames stories in Zane Grey Western Magazine:

• Gun Trouble at Tonto Basin (November 1969; unconfirmed author)*
• Danger Rides the Dollar Wagon (March 1970; by Pronzini & Wallman)
• The Marauders of Gallows Valley (July 1970,; by Pronzini & Wallman)
• The Raid at Three Rapids (November 1970; by Pronzini & Wallman)*
• Attack of the Bandito Horde (August 1971; by Pronzini & Wallman)*
• Apache Massacre at Puma Junction (August 1972; by Pronzini and Wallman)
• King of the Outlaw Horde (April 1973; unconfirmed author)

* including in Gun Trouble in Tonto Basin

The Yaqui story in Zane Grey Western Magazine:

• Siege at Forlorn River (May 1970; by Pronzini & Wallman) 

  

Now, just vforty miles from the Mexicanb order