EDITOR’S NOTE
The Western is a staple of Pulp Fiction, perhaps even a foundation. AFterall, they’ve been part and parcel with the Pulps since their inception. Let us not forget that at one point, what we now consider Western Fiction was Contemporary Fiction. Hollywood has done much work in dividing the Western Genre into subtypes like Traditional and Spaghetti. In the pages of Pulp Magazines, you will find no such thing. Instead, the variance in themes, styles, ideas, and characters are rooted entirely in the author, their experiences, and their research. Max Brand is the undisputed King of Pulp Westerns, penneding night innumerable words in this lifetime. Robert E. Howard, best known for Conan the Cimmerian, was in the process of transitioning to writing solely Westerns by the time of his death. Louis L’Amour got his start in Pulp Magazines before growing into a longer novel format. Other Pulp Icons like H. Bedord Jones and Arthur O. Friel also occasionally penned a Wild West tale. From the very first issues of ARGOSY Magazine, the Western has always been there.
Lastly, I would like to note that this story is particularly special to me. It is penned by author R.K. Olson, whom I share a Table of Contents with in Crimson Quill Quarterly.
DEVIL OF RED ROCK CANYON
By R.K. Olson
“TUG ELGIN, I thought you had more smarts than that,” said Doc Lawrence. He shook his gray head.
“You present that to Sue as a first wedding anniversary gift and it might be the last one you ever need to buy,” said Clem Crossley. He jabbed his pipe in the air like a sword to emphasize his point.
Six other townspeople sitting in Moab, Utah’s Imperial Dance Hall and Restaurant voiced their suggestions between swallows of beer.
Maybe a dress?
Perfume?
“Tug, you’re a heck of a tracker, but when it comes to finding a woman’s heart, you’re blind as a bat,” laughed Doc.
Tug lowered his eyes and looked at the Remington Over/Under Derringer in his hand. Its silver plating gleamed, and the pearl grips were smooth as river stone. The gun rested in a box of black velvet.
“I thought a derringer would be a useful gift. For protection… practical…” His voice trailed off.
“You want practical? Buy her a shovel!” joked a patron in the back. The comment generated guffaws and wide smiles.
Crossley stepped over to Tug amid the laughter. He was an older version of Tug. Both men were tall and rangy, with trail-hardened, sinewy muscles. Crossley put a hand on Tug’s shoulder and looked at the young man from under bushy, dark brows. “Head back to Mateo’s General Store and get your money back for that derringer.”
“Our anniversary is a week away. I need a gift,” said Tug.
Crossley reached for his hat just as three horses came pounding down Moab’s dusty, hard-packed main street. An instant later, Sheriff Jacobs bounced his wiry frame through the double doors of the Imperial. He braced his feet apart, hands on hips. His hat rested on oversized ears, and he gnawed at a corner of his bushy salt-and-pepper mustache.
“Whisper Hawkins is out of jail and killed Simon Mueller. Carved him up with that Arkansas Toothpick he carries,” said the sheriff, shaking with bottled-up energy. “I’m rounding up a posse. McCally and Simpson are ready to ride. Who else?”
He was called Whisper because his voice was the opposite. It was loud and deep. Whisper had spent time with the Utes, served as a sharpshooter in the army and worked as a buffalo hunter. He always carried a wicked fifteen-inch knife.
“Whisper said he’d get back at Simon for putting him in jail,” said Doc. “What happened?”
The sheriff swallowed. “I stopped counting after ten stab wounds. Whisper was always crazy but I think he’s gone totally loco. Prison and wandering alone in the canyons has driven him mad.”
Crossley removed his Stetson. “Simon was a good man and a good friend. Whisper Hawkins is a thief, a cattle rustler and now a murderer. We should’ve hanged him. I’ll ride with you,” said Crossley.
“Thanks, Clem.” The sheriff locked eyes with Tug’s blue eyes that were as cool as a mountain lake. “Tug, I could use your help to track Whisper. Most likely he’ll head south to those canyons he loves so much.”
“I’m not going to miss my wedding anniversary,” said Tug
“I’ll have you back in time. Promise. I’ll pay the usual rate.” He turned to the men scattered about the room and said, “Who else?”
The other men averted their eyes.
“Let’s go! Time’s a wasting! We’re going to hunt that butcher to ground and serve justice,” Sheriff Jacobs leaped out the door and vaulted onto his big gray horse. “We leave in ten minutes!”
“I’ll make sure Sue knows you joined the posse,” said Doc.
Imperial patrons discussed Whisper Hawkins and the brutal murder while Simpson, the blacksmith, and McCally, a railroad worker, came in. The bartender gave them a free glass of beer each.
*****
THEY PICKED UP Whisper’s trail near Mueller’s ranch. The posse followed Tug out of Moab toward a red rock canyon-laced area about thirty miles south. The sun was bright and yellow in a blue sky. The air was as hot as a bake oven.
The men shared stories on the ride. McCally told with a good sense of humor about his failures as a gold miner. Simpson talked about his upbringing in England.
Blackie, Tug’s black gelding with three white stockings, handled the ride well among the towering red sandstone cliffs, deep canyons, soaring buttes and mesas carved over a million years by wind and rain.
The men stopped talking in the quiet, reverential calm amid nature’s glory. Only an occasional muffled hoof or a creak of saddle leather broke the vast silence. Tug let his eyes sweep across the horizon, resting on the distant snow-capped La Sal Mountains. They looked cool and inviting.
Tug tracked Whisper’s trail until the posse made camp, fed and watered the horses at a canyon opening. Weary, tight eyes watched the setting sun transform into a red fireball and dip below the horizon, illuminating the red rocks to a deeper shade of crimson. The men wrapped themselves in blankets and tried to stay warm in the chilly desert night. The cool, crystal-clear air made the stars look within reach.
Crossley stuffed his pipe with tobacco and took the first watch.
At first light, Tug rode out of camp to find Whisper’s tracks before the posse rode over them. Blackie’s breath looked like white steam shooting out of his nostrils.
Tug spied a two-foot piece of mesquite branch as thick as a finger that wasn’t too twisted. He unsheathed his knife, slid off his horse and cut the branch free. Then he found one of Whisper’s clearer footprints. He laid the stick next to the print vertically and notched the stick to show the print’s length. Next, he measured the width of the print and notched his stick again. Finally, he measured the stride length.
Called a man-tracking stick, it was an essential tracking tool. It was a simple way to identify a footprint or marking to ensure you were following the right person.
Tug always surprised people when he explained that the problem in tracking was having too much sign. People and animals trampling tracks can create confusion. A man-tracking stick helps to cut through the confusion and stay on target.
The men stirred in their blankets as the sizzle of bacon hitting a hot iron skillet and the sharp scent of coffee floated in the air. Tug swung down from his horse.
*****
THE CANYON WAS eerily quiet. It was a wild, brooding place of red rock, bushes and stunted trees. The only sounds were the wind murmuring and caressing the red rock formations. Sunlight danced off the red sandstone, animating the canyon and making it appear to squirm as if alive.
Tug caught his mind wandering to thoughts of Sue. Together, they would build something to leave to their children.
After an hour of picking through creosote bushes and catclaw thorns pulling at their clothing, the terrain turned rockier. The old game trail they followed topped a rockslide and opened to a boulder field and, further ahead, an open wash.
The posse got off their horses in the shade of the canyon wall and stamped their feet to get the circulation going. Each man took a mouthful of water. Tug rubbed Blackie’s gums with water using his fingers.
He walked into the shade of the canyon wall with the others and leaned back against the red stone. The wall’s coolness and grittiness reached his skin through his wool shirt.
“Let’s get going. Canyons make me nervous,” said the sheriff.
The canyon narrowed, intensifying the daytime heat until the air had a weight all its own. Tug looked up at the narrow blue strip of sky between the canyon walls, and the isolation of the place overwhelmed him.
This will still be here when I’m gone.
Half an hour later, Tug spotted a white rag stuck on an enormous red rock in the middle of the canyon. It stirred in the soft breeze. He stopped the posse.
“Could be a trap, a bushwhacking,” said the sheriff, nudging his gray gelding next to Tug.
“I don’t think so. There were better places for a bushwhacking back the way we came. I’ll go get it,” said Tug.
“I’ll go with you.” said the sheriff.
Lines of sweat tracked their way down through the dust on Tug’s face. They swung off their horses and walked over. The sheriff handed his rifle to Tug and reached up and plucked the rag off the boulder.
Tug watched the sheriff examine both sides of the rag
The sheriff handed the white rag to Tug and waved the posse forward
A note on the white cotton fabric, written in a clumsy hand, read:.
Follow and die.
*****
AT NOON, THE sheriff called for another rest stop in the shade.
Tug was hot and covered with a fine layer of dust. He had seen no sign of Whisper for two hours. He knew the shortcut to finding Whisper would be to find the water sources in the canyon. Everybody needed water.
Tug calculated the amount of water left in his canteen and figured they were coming to the limit of where they could turn around and make it to water before their canteens went dry.
Then Tug saw a bee.
His heart leaped in his chest. He tied Blackie off to a mesquite branch and followed the bee. The bee darted around tumbled down rocks and alighted at a slow seep at the base of the rocks.
A mudhole, but it’s wet.
Each horse lapped up the water in the hole and then had to wait for the hole to fill up again. They refilled canteens with the muddy water, happy to have something wet.
“We got Whisper on the run. Don’t let him get comfortable. Let’s move up the canyon,” said the sheriff.
The canyon opened onto a level piece of ground that rose further ahead.
The bark of a rifle and the hum of a bullet ricocheted off a rock near Tug. Startled, he took cover behind the boulders. Tug saw a metallic flash of a gun barrel reflecting the sunlight one hundred yards away and half-way up a rockslide. Whisper’s position had a commanded a sweeping field of fire.
“I saw the flash too,” said Sheriff Jacob, squatting next to Tug. Raising his voice, “I want you fellas to give me covering fire. Fire at that spot where we saw the flash. Then hightail it around on the left side of the rocks and come back me up. If I can get closer on the right, I can make it mighty hot for Whisper.”
Each member of the posse pulled his rifle out of a saddle boot and hunkered down behind rocks facing Whisper’s position. Tug pulled a Colt pistol. He didn’t have a rifle. Sweat plastered Tug’s shirt to his back.
“I told you not to follow me!” Whisper’s loud voice thundered in the canyon. “You’re all going to die!”
“Whisper, it doesn’t have to be this way,” replied the sheriff.
“I am the devil and this is Hell!”
“All right, boys. Let’em have it and I’ll make a run for it,” said the sheriff over his shoulder.
Rifle butts nestled against shoulders as Crossley, McCally and Simpson fired four rounds each, cocking their Winchesters and peppering the spot where they saw the gun flashes.
The sheriff scurried forward like a beetle, staying low behind boulders. As soon as he stopped, a bullet from off to the right from where the gun barrel first flashed, smacked into the sheriff’s chest. The sheriff went to his knees and then fell face-first onto the ground.
“Where’d that shot come from?” asked Crossley. “Are there two shooters?”
“Who wants it next?” said Whisper, his voice echoing off the red canyon walls.
Crossley folded his rangy body down next to Tug. “Whisper fooled us. We thought he was hiding in the rock slide dead ahead. He was off to our right. He killed the sheriff,” said Crossley.
The canyon was as quiet as a graveyard. The four men debated what to do next in strained voices. Crossley worked his way forward and confirmed that the sheriff was dead.
Tug worked his way around the edge of the rockslide before he pulled himself up to where they saw the gun barrel flash. Dislodged pebbles rolled free and tumbled to the canyon floor. There were no gun shots.
Instead of a gun, he found a buffed-up tin plate attached by a string to a thin stake in the ground. Tug squatted down and examined the contraption. A light breeze moved the pie plate, flashing off its metal surface like a gun barrel. The posse’s bullets pockmarked the rocks in front of the pie plate.
Whisper outfoxed us. Maybe he’s not so crazy.
*****
THEY FORTED UP for the night and wrapped the sheriff’s body in his blanket. Tomorrow, they’d get out of the canyon and bring the body back to Moab.
Crossley recommended against having a fire, so when the sun set, the cool desert air chilled them to the bone. Tug pulled his jacket out of his bedroll and shrugged it on. He listened to the night insects and tried not to think of the sheriff lying dead wrapped in a blanket. Instead, he forced himself to conjure up romantic ways to impress Sue on their anniversary.
A picnic?
Each man took a two-hour sentry duty watching the horses and the camp. It wasn’t until midnight that Tug’s eyelids got heavy.
He snapped open his eyes. Something wasn’t right.
The night’s insects were silent!
Before he could shout a warning, a scream cut the air, and a large object thudded on the ground and rolled to the middle of the camp.
“Stay down,” yelled Crossley.
“What the hell?” cursed Simpson.
“Oh, dear God,” said McCally.
Tug spun around and looked into the eyes of Sheriff Jacob’s severed head, where it came to rest propped up against McCally’s saddle. The mouth was in the shape of an “O”.
Tug’s bowels turned to water.
“Whisper has gone completely crazy,” said Tug.
“Saddle the horses! I don’t care if it’s still dark! Let’s get the hell out of here!” yelled Simpson, scrambling for the tethered horses picketed beyond mesquite bushes fifty feet away.
The scraping-clank sound of steel rubbing steel split the night air, followed by Simpson’s screams.
Tug and McCally followed and found Simpson dead in a bear trap, hidden under a dusting of red sand. The trap had snapped shut on his leg, severing the femoral artery. Tug could feel the moist, bloody earth through the soles of his boots.
McCally, in his stocking feet, panicked, and ran past the dead Simpson toward the horses. His foot snagged on a thin wire stretched between two mesquite bushes. He pitched forward with a cry, his momentum carrying him into a pit of sharpened stakes. The stakes, hardened by fire, impaled McCally, leaving him twitching like a skewered fish when Tug found him.
“Good Lord! Simpson . . . McCally,” said Tug. A horse snorted.
Tug found Crossley hunkered down behind a scattered group of boulders away from the campsite. Crossley was holding his pipe in one hand and Colt pistol in the other. His hands were shaking.
“Jesus,” said Crossley. “Whisper is hunting us.”
A stiffening breeze brushed Tug’s cheek. A flash of heat lightning illuminated, like a photographer’s flash powder, a tableau of two men hunched behind a rock.
“Simpson and McCally – what happened? Move back toward the horses,” whispered Crossley. He stood and stared into the darkness.
Tug felt cold in the pit of his stomach. Waves of nausea hit him every time a bolt of lightning lit up the sky, cutting through the darkness. He vomited the little food he had left in his stomach. Dry-heaves contorted his stomach muscles and forced him down on his hands and knees. The storm muffled his noisy gagging.
The sound of a scuffed sole and a shout reached his ears. He turned as lightning flashed across the sky and showed Crossley fighting a smaller man advancing with a long knife in his hands. Raindrops spattered Tug’s face as darkness obscured the fight.
Crossley groaned in the pitch black darkness over the growing roar of the wind. Tug drew his Colt and strained his eyesight, making his eyes large and round, trying to penetrate the thick, heavy darkness.
“Clem? Clem?” said Tug.
He sensed rather than saw in the wet, oily darkness motion and leaped to the right. He landed awkwardly and fell, dropping his pistol. The lightning flashed again, and Tug saw Whisper almost on top of him with a long knife in one hand and a pistol in the other. Tug kicked a leg up and caught Whisper in the groin. Whisper cursed while Tug scrambled in the dark on all fours to find cover. He crawled forward until the ground dropped away, pitching Tug forward and down into an old wash. A bullet snarled over his head.
“I’m hunting you! I’m the devil and I’ll have your soul!” screamed Whisper over the roar of the wind.
Tug cocked an ear and heard another roar. This second roar sounded like a train barreling through the canyon. In an instant, he was on his feet, dashing to the other side of the wash. He clawed up the far bank as a flash flood raced down the gully, swirling around his ankles, threatening to pluck him into its dark waters. Somewhere in the mad scramble he’d lost his man-tracking stick.
The flash flood pushed piles of sticks, dirt and rocks in a twelve-foot wide boiling mass of fast-moving water. Tug struggled to gain his footing as the deadly water of the flash flood roared by him in the darkness.
The gully washer cut off Whisper. Another bullet snarled over Tug’s head. Tug snatched the Remington Over/Under Derringer he hadn’t had time to return to Mateo’s General Store from his pocket, loaded it and slid it into his boot top. He shoved the gift box back into his pocket.
His bones and body were weary, but he thought of Sue, their anniversary and the life they hoped to live together, and he forced himself to move. Tug climbed away from the gully washer and into the bushes for cover to wait out the storm.
He prayed Whisper wouldn’t find him. Once during the long night, he heard a sound like branches scraping on fabric. He remained motionless, taking short, quiet sips of air. His heart hammered in his chest. Then the sound stopped, and a cloak of quiet darkness smothered Tug again.
Tug forced himself to stay motionless and strained to hear any little sound. He thought of Sue and called up her face in his mind’s eye. He thought of their ranch, really just a cabin right now but with potential. He started to relax when what sounded like a scuffing sound of a shoe on rocks. Tug didn’t move and held his breath. He sensed something out in the darkness to his right. Whatever it was, it stayed where it was seemingly uncertain about its next move. Without a sound it moved away just before dawn.
Dawn brought relief and the chance to stretch cramped muscles. The drenching, roaring storm abated and left as quickly as it came. The parched earth drank and the rising sun poked through ragged, disappearing clouds. Soaked to the skin and caked in mud, Tug’s shirt and pants stuck to his body like a cold, clammy second skin.
Tug took a moment to assess his situation. He was alone. Whisper was crazy and tried to kill him last night.
He had to get out of this canyon.
Clem, Simpson and McCally? Dead. Got to find Blackie.
Tug was wet and shivering. He rubbed his hands together to relieve the stiffness in his icy fingers. He picked his way through the brush, splashed across the drying wash to the campsite.
Flies had found the bodies.
Whisper had taken all the guns and canteens. He had scattered the horses.
Tug pushed the nausea of fear in his belly down and started hiking out of the canyon. He tried to keep on the shaded side of the canyon and stay in the shadows. Last night’s storm provided water to drink. He needed a horse to get away from Whisper.
The sun kept moving in the sky as Tug hiked, watching for traps and any sign of the horses. He stumbled across a series of rabbit snares and then spied a juniper tree partially concealing an opening in the canyon wall. He lay prone under cover and watched the opening and waited until he couldn’t wait anymore. He got up and slipped inside.
He’d found Whisper’s camp.
The posse’s canteens and guns were all stacked inside a patched canvas tent. He took his Colt off the pile and slid it into his holster after checking the loads.
A sorrel stood tethered nearby. It ripped and chewed ground cover with its big teeth. The horse was unconcerned about Tug.
Tug drained the remaining water in one canteen and shoveled a tin plate of half-eaten cold beans and fry bread into his empty belly.
He grabbed two canteens and got up to saddle the sorrel.
“Turn around and face the devil. I don’t want to shoot a man in the back,” said Whisper. His voice was dry and hard.
Tug swallowed and turned around.
“Pull that hog’s leg out, slow, and drop it on the ground.”
Shadows smothered Whisper’s face. He wore tattered and dirty range clothes. He was pointing a Sharps buffalo rifle at Tug’s guts.
Tug placed his pistol on the ground and stood up straight. A bead of sweat inched its way down his spine.
“Step away from the pistol.”
Whisper used one hand to pull out a wicked-looking, double-edged knife, over a foot long. Its polished steel glinted in the slanting sunlight. He leaned the Sharps against a rock, butt down.
“The old ways are the best ways,” said Whisper.
“Wait! I’m married . . . we want a family,” said Tug.
“I’m the devil and I’ve hunted you down and I’m goin’ carve your soul out of your chest.” His eye glittered an instant before he lunged forward with his Arkansas Toothpick.
The rattlesnake quickness of the knife thrust sent Tug stumbling backwards to avoid the blade. He hit the ground hard knocking the breath out of him. Whisper leaped at him trying to plunge the knife into Tug. Tug grabbed the wrist of the knife hand and delivered a hard right cross to Whisper’s chin. Whisper rolled off Tug with a grunt. Whisper got to his feet fast as Tug yanked the derringer out of his boot and fired pointblank.
The forty-one caliber slug slammed into Whisper’s leg. He groaned in pain and surprise.
Whisper limped forward, a specter of death, his eyes like the barrels of a shotgun.
“I’ll gut you slow.”
The derringer’s second shot punched a hole in Whisper’s stomach, staggering him. He hesitated and Tug grabbed his Colt off the ground.
The first shot with the Colt smacked into Whisper’s chest, rocking him back on his heels. He stumbled, but kept coming.
KA-POW! The second shot staggered Whisper, a look of disbelief on his face.
KA-POW! The third brought him to one knee, with the knife glinting.
KA-POW! The fourth bullet didn’t stop Whisper as he crawled forward.
KA-POW! Tug fired the fifth bullet. His world was reduced to his bucking gun and Whisper.
Tug’s last shot hit Whisper in the head, and the madman collapsed into the red dust.
The air swirled with the acrid stench of gunpowder. Tug had shot Whisper to doll rags.
The ringing in Tug’s ears subsided. It was replaced by the murmur of the wind among the rocks. He lay there for a long time, the empty Colt in his hand, staring at the vast, indifferent blue sky. Then, slowly, painfully, he got to his feet. He slipped the derringer back into his pocket.
“Sue, I’m coming home . . . for our anniversary,” said Tug to the red rock canyon walls.
*****
TUG RODE INTO Moab with four bodies slung over four horses on the eve of his first wedding anniversary.
Sue kept the silver derringer in her jewelry box. What it represented was what she was forever thankful for.
Tug.
She said it was the best gift he could have given her.
END.
R.K. Olson, also known as Bob, is a multiple award-winning short story and novel writer in the pulp, western, horror, and sword & sorcery genres. He started writing after a successful global technology career that spanned across every continent except Antarctica. His first novel, “Siege at the Slash B,” is set to be published early in 2025 by Two Gun Publishing. The novel is a traditional western with plenty of bullets, bare knuckles, and bushwhackings. Olson’s writing has been recognized with several awards, including the 2023 Mystic Mind Magazine Readers’ Choice Award and the 2024 Freedom Fiction Journal Editor’s Choice, Top Adventure Story. He continues to inspire readers with his imaginative storytelling and dedication to his craft.
Return Friday, Januray 30th for a swashbuckling tale of treasure and betrayal in “TWO CROSSES MARK THE SPOT” by John A. Tures!
Cliffhanger! Magazine 
Leave a comment