The Baron of Coyote River
L. Ron Hubbard
SELECTED FICTION WORKS
BY L. RON HUBBARD
FANTASY
The Case of the Friendly Corpse
Death’s Deputy
Fear
The Ghoul
The Indigestible Triton
Slaves of Sleep & The Masters of Sleep
Typewriter in the Sky
The Ultimate Adventure
SCIENCE FICTION
Battlefield Earth
The Conquest of Space
The End Is Not Yet
Final Blackout
The Kilkenny Cats
The Kingslayer
The Mission Earth Dekalogy*
Ole Doc Methuselah
To the Stars
ADVENTURE
The Hell Job series
WESTERN
Buckskin Brigades
Empty Saddles
Guns of Mark Jardine
Hot Lead Payoff
A full list of L. Ron Hubbard’s
novellas and short stories is provided at the back.
*Dekalogy: a group of ten volumes
Published by
Galaxy Press, LLC
7051 Hollywood Boulevard, Suite 200
Hollywood, CA 90028
© 2007 L. Ron Hubbard Library. All Rights Reserved.
Any unauthorized copying, translation, duplication, importation or distribution, in whole or in part, by any means, including electronic copying, storage or transmission, is a violation of applicable laws.
Mission Earth is a trademark owned by L. Ron Hubbard Library and is used with permission. Battlefield Earth is a trademark owned by Author Services, Inc. and is used with permission.
Cover art: © 1948 Better Publications, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Hachette Filipacchi Media. Horsemen illustration and glossary illustration from Western Story Magazine are © and ™ Condé Nast Publications and are used with their permission. Fantasy, Far-Flung Adventure and Science Fiction illustrations: Unknown and Astounding Science Fiction copyright © by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Penny Publications, LLC.
ISBN 978-1-59212-482-4 ePub version
ISBN 978-1-59212-304-9 print version
ISBN 978-1-59212-377-3 audiobook version
Library of Congress Control Number: 2007928018
Contents
FOREWORD
THE BARON OF COYOTE RIVER
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
REIGN OF THE GILA MONSTER
STORY PREVIEW:
CATTLE KING FOR A DAY
GLOSSARY
L. RON HUBBARD
IN THE GOLDEN AGE
OF PULP FICTION
THE STORIES FROM THE
GOLDEN AGE
FOREWORD
Stories from Pulp Fiction’s Golden Age
AND it was a golden age.
The 1930s and 1940s were a vibrant, seminal time for a gigantic audience of eager readers, probably the largest per capita audience of readers in American history. The magazine racks were chock-full of publications with ragged trims, garish cover art, cheap brown pulp paper, low cover prices—and the most excitement you could hold in your hands.
“Pulp” magazines, named for their rough-cut, pulpwood paper, were a vehicle for more amazing tales than Scheherazade could have told in a million and one nights. Set apart from higher-class “slick” magazines, printed on fancy glossy paper with quality artwork and superior production values, the pulps were for the “rest of us,” adventure story after adventure story for people who liked to read. Pulp fiction authors were no-holds-barred entertainers—real storytellers. They were more interested in a thrilling plot twist, a horrific villain or a white-knuckle adventure than they were in lavish prose or convoluted metaphors.
The sheer volume of tales released during this wondrous golden age remains unmatched in any other period of literary history—hundreds of thousands of published stories in over nine hundred different magazines. Some titles lasted only an issue or two; many magazines succumbed to paper shortages during World War II, while others endured for decades yet. Pulp fiction remains as a treasure trove of stories you can read, stories you can love, stories you can remember. The stories were driven by plot and character, with grand heroes, terrible villains, beautiful damsels (often in distress), diabolical plots, amazing places, breathless romances. The readers wanted to be taken beyond the mundane, to live adventures far removed from their ordinary lives—and the pulps rarely failed to deliver.
In that regard, pulp fiction stands in the tradition of all memorable literature. For as history has shown, good stories are much more than fancy prose. William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jules Verne, Alexandre Dumas—many of the greatest literary figures wrote their fiction for the readers, not simply literary colleagues and academic admirers. And writers for pulp magazines were no exception. These publications reached an audience that dwarfed the circulations of today’s short story magazines. Issues of the pulps were scooped up and read by over thirty million avid readers each month.
Because pulp fiction writers were often paid no more than a cent a word, they had to become prolific or starve. They also had to write aggressively. As Richard Kyle, publisher and editor of Argosy, the first and most long-lived of the pulps, so pointedly explained: “The pulp magazine writers, the best of them, worked for markets that did not write for critics or attempt to satisfy timid advertisers. Not having to answer to anyone other than their readers, they wrote about human beings on the edges of the unknown, in those new lands the future would explore. They wrote for what we would become, not for what we had already been.”
Some of the more lasting names that graced the pulps include H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, Max Brand, Louis L’Amour, Elmore Leonard, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner, John D. MacDonald, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein—and, of course, L. Ron Hubbard.
In a word, he was among the most prolific and popular writers of the era. He was also the most enduring—hence this series—and certainly among the most legendary. It all began only months after he first tried his hand at fiction, with L. Ron Hubbard tales appearing in Thrilling Adventures, Argosy, Five-Novels Monthly, Detective Fiction Weekly, Top-Notch, Texas Ranger, War Birds, Western Stories, even Romantic Range. He could write on any subject, in any genre, from jungle explorers to deep-sea divers, from G-men and gangsters, cowboys and flying aces to mountain climbers, hard-boiled detectives and spies. But he really began to shine when he turned his talent to science fiction and fantasy of which he authored nearly fifty novels or novelettes to forever change the shape of those genres.
Following in the tradition of such famed authors as Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Jack London and Ernest Hemingway, Ron Hubbard actually lived adventures that his own characters would have admired—as an ethnologist among primitive tribes, as prospector and engineer in hostile climes, as a captain of vessels on four oceans. He even wrote a series of articles for Argosy, called “Hell Job,” in which he lived and told of the most dangerous professions a man could put his hand to.
Finally, and just for good measure, he was also an accomplished photographer, artist, filmmaker, musician and educator. But he was first and foremost a writer, and that’s the L. Ron Hubbard we come to know through the pages of this volume.
This library of Stories from the Golden Age presents the best of L. Ron Hubbard’s fiction fro
m the heyday of storytelling, the Golden Age of the pulp magazines. In these eighty volumes, readers are treated to a full banquet of 153 stories, a kaleidoscope of tales representing every imaginable genre: science fiction, fantasy, western, mystery, thriller, horror, even romance—action of all kinds and in all places.
Because the pulps themselves were printed on such inexpensive paper with high acid content, issues were not meant to endure. As the years go by, the original issues of every pulp from Argosy through Zeppelin Stories continue crumbling into brittle, brown dust. This library preserves the L. Ron Hubbard tales from that era, presented with a distinctive look that brings back the nostalgic flavor of those times.
L. Ron Hubbard’s Stories from the Golden Age has something for every taste, every reader. These tales will return you to a time when fiction was good clean entertainment and the most fun a kid could have on a rainy afternoon or the best thing an adult could enjoy after a long day at work.
Pick up a volume, and remember what reading is supposed to be all about. Remember curling up with a great story.
—Kevin J. Anderson
KEVIN J. ANDERSON is the author of more than ninety critically acclaimed works of speculative fiction, including The Saga of Seven Suns, the continuation of the Dune Chronicles with Brian Herbert, and his New York Times bestselling novelization of L. Ron Hubbard’s Ai! Pedrito!
The Baron of Coyote River
CHAPTER ONE
False Bullets
THE man who came from across Hell’s Parade Ground was stumbling, weaving from side to side in the wagon tracks, dragging up a yellow curtain of lazy dust behind him.
His high-heeled boots were battered, his angoras were heavy with mud long since dry, his yellow hair was matted from an old wound.
But he still walked and he still had his saddle. The saddle alone told its story. Here was a rider without a mount, here was a puncher who had come far.
And those who watched him come from the shadowy ’dobe of Santos read his story long before he had arrived.
If this man came from nearby he would wear leather batwings, and he would have had better sense than to stab at Hell’s Parade Ground afoot in August. And the men of Santos reasoned with narrow eyes that this man was an outlaw—and as such they would receive him.
Lance Gordon did not care what they thought of him. He was too spent and hot for that. The sizzling sun made him feel like a roast pig, lacking only an apple to be served at a buzzard’s banquet.
He stumbled through the outskirts of the ’dobe settlement, swerved into the main stem and limped toward a place facetiously named the Diamond Palace Saloon. The twenty-nine-inch tapaderos trailed from the saddle behind him but the silver conchas were too smeared to shine.
He stopped for a moment in the sun and looked into the dim bar, then, taking a hitch in his already frazzled nerve, he made the last ten feet, to lean wearily against the mahogany.
The half-breed bartender left off polishing glasses. “Name your poison, stranger.”
Lance Gordon paid no heed to the stray punchers who had gathered curiously at the door. With a heavy effort, he plumped the saddle down on the bar, giving it a push.
“How much will you give me for the rig?”
“I ain’t buyin’ rigs, stranger.”
“It’s Mex and it’s worth plenty. Look here, I’ll let you have it cheap enough.”
“Sorry, stranger. But,” he added with a calculating muddy eye on the saddle, “I might let you take it out in trade.”
“You got a gun . . . and maybe some ammunition?”
“Well, a feller kicked off here last week and he kind of bequeathed me his gun as sort of payment on his bar bill.”
“Make it the gun, plenty of bullets and a quart and it’s a trade.”
The bartender pulled the saddle toward him, noticing two bullet holes in the skirt. In its place he planted a belted Frontiersman Colt .45. He grudgingly added the bottle.
Lance Gordon heard a wondering murmur from the doorway and he glanced sideways without any great interest at the silhouettes of the punchers against the bright yellow sunlight outside. He picked up the gun and buckled it about him, pocketed the cartridges and took the whiskey bottle by the neck. Then, stumbling against tables, he made his way to the far corner of the room and sat down with his back firmly against the wall. That was another bad sign.
A tall man with a heavy black beard and colorless eyes came in and leaned up against the bar. He wore batwings of extreme design which bore down their length gaudy spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds. At the sides, lashed down tight and low, were two pearl-handled, gold-chased revolvers of late pattern. The hat was straight brimmed and stiff and he wore it rakishly. For all the expression and movement he made he might as well have been a rock butte jutting out of the desert.
“Come far, stranger?” said this one.
Lance Gordon frowned heavily and raised a drink to his lips, his hands shaking until the amber fluid slopped over his knuckles.
“You never can tell,” said Lance.
Another murmur came from the doorway. Two men importantly shouldered their way through and took their stand in the center of the room. One was wearing a black vest and a dirty white shirt, the other wore a star glittering against a coat the color of dust.
“I’m sheriff here,” said the man with the star. “Brant’s the name.”
“Not the Brant,” said Lance with an unsteady smile.
Brant shoved his chest out a little. “That’s me.”
“Never heard of you,” said Lance.
The tall bearded one smiled.
Brant scowled until his little pinched eyes were almost invisible. His gray mustache bristled. “I came in here to find out what your business was in this town, stranger.”
“That’s easy,” said Lance. “My business.”
Brant took a step nearer, peering intently at the newcomer. He saw a disk of silver sparkle on Lance’s chin thong and on closer inspection knew that the sparkle came from a set diamond there.
Brant began to smile and inch his fingers toward his gun. “I know you now. Your name’s Lance Gordon, ain’t it? I’d know that thong anyplace. You might as well come along peaceable-like. Don’t seem they appreciated MacLeod’s killing over in the Sierras.”
Outside of an almost imperceptible tightening of his muscles, Lance received the news calmly. “Word travels fast, doesn’t it?”
“About killers,” said Brant, fingers closing over his revolver butt.
It did not seem to those who watched that Lance Gordon moved, but the gun he had just received from the bartender looked like a tunnel about to receive a train.
“I’m tired of running,” said Lance. “I’m sick of it. It doesn’t matter to you that MacLeod slaughtered a dozen men to get his land in the Nevadas. If you’ve got orders to send me back, then carry them out. But I’m not going—alive.”
Brant stepped hastily back. The bearded one against the bar smiled again.
“There’s plenty to take you over at the fort,” promised Brant.
“Then send for them,” said Lance, bitterly. “I’ve walked fifteen miles since my horse died. I’m tired. It shouldn’t take more than a company to get me.”
Still backing, Brant made the door, but there he was suddenly heaved inward again by pressure from without.
Into the room came a blue-coated, brass-buttoned cavalry officer followed by troopers who held ready carbines in their hands. The group came without a word, walking stiff-legged as though to a firing squad. Their black, wide-brimmed hats were salted with gray dust and their boots were almost white.
“Howdy, Captain Anderson,” said Brant. “I’m glad you came over. That’s Lance Gordon over there.”
Anderson turned a thin, harsh face toward his man. “I heard about it.
I’ve had telegraphic orders for two days. Forgot about the new telegraph, didn’t you, Gordon?”
Lance poured himself another drink and tipped his chair back against the wall. “Well, what are you waiting for? Sure, I shot MacLeod and I knew you’d have orders. But if I still had my horse, you’d have to look all over Mexico to find me. But I didn’t have my horse very long and now I’m doing you a favor. Come on, why don’t you take me?”
He spun the revolver by its trigger guard, idly.
Captain Anderson turned to his troopers. “Take him, men.”
The revolver leveled itself. “I think,” said Lance casually, “that I might as well have a military guard to hell. Come on, gentlemen. Do you want to live forever?”
The troopers hung back. Anderson grunted and unbuckled his own holster flap.
Lance stood up, throwing the chair to the floor. He steadied himself against the table and glared at them. “Come on,” he begged.
The carbines dropped to port. The troopers nervously glanced at their captain and then stepped closer to Lance.
Gordon pulled the trigger, but instead of the blasting roar of a Colt came a small snapping sound. He stared dully down at the weapon, failing to understand. The troopers pressed ahead, knocked the revolver away and quickly grasped Lance by the arms, dragging him forward.
The bartender snickered, “Think I wanted to lose my best customers? Them’s duds he’s got there.”
Lance was sagging but he glared all the same.
Brant began to laugh with nervous relief. “Now we’ll see about it. Now we’ll see. What are your orders, Captain?”
“I’m to hold him here for trial and then execute him.” He buckled his holster flap again and said, “Come on, men.”
The tall bearded man at the bar cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon, fellers, but I wouldn’t go no place if I was you.”
The group halted, astounded, and stared into the muzzles of those flashy twin guns.
“For God’s sake, Tyler, have you gone crazy? Put those things away. This ain’t your fight.” But Brant stayed where he was nevertheless.
