Here's the first of a series of excerpts from the manuscripts for Volumes 3 and 4 I will be posting on a regular basis. Considering his corpus, Don Glut obviously shares my love of crossovers. This was a fun story, even though I had to use Google to identify many of these characters (though that's hardly the first or the last time I've utilized that particular search engine in my research):
Summer 1880
WHO
REALLY WAS THAT MASKED MAN?
In the 1930s framing sequence, a
Texas Ranger says that he recently brought cattle rustlers to justice in
cooperation with ranchers from the B-Bar-B in Big Bend County, the TM Bar in
Dobie County, and the Bar 20, as well as an Arizona rancher-pilot who is a kind
of “king” of the sky and a mystery-loving Texan detective called “Doc.” The
Ranger’s horse is named Charcoal, and other horses ridden during the operation
include Amigo, Tony, and Topper III. The Ranger was sent a historical puzzle a
few months back by a daily newspaper called the Sentinel. The stack of documents sent to him by the paper’s
publisher includes stories torn from the London
Times. The documents describe the true story of a former Ranger who became
a legend in the Old West. In the tale, a Dodge City Marshal talks with his
Deputy and a man who has a gray steel and rainbow mother-of-pearl six-shooter
in his holster. The man with the gun is planning to go shooting with Ted, an
old friend of his from Tennessee, who recently spent some time with a Mountie
and his remarkable dog in the Yukon Territory. The Marshal is friends with a
sheriff in Canyon County. The man with the six-shooter mentions “that lovely
lady down at the Longbranch.” A Masked Man and his Indian companion ride into
town to turn Deuce Cavendish, a cousin of an infamous outlaw they once brought
to justice, over to the Marshal. The Masked Man volunteers to take Cavendish to
Doc’s office. The Marshal has Wanted posters of two Mexicans, one of whom is
trim and handsome and calls himself “Kid,” while the other is fat and almost
slovenly. The Masked Man has a friend who is a Cavalry Captain at Fort Laramie.
The Mexicans, who ride horses named Diablo and Loco, come across the Masked Man
and the Indian. The Kid says he knows of only one man who is not a bandito and
who wore a mask, and the Masked Man is not El Zorro. A red-haired man and a
young Indian boy ride to Dodge City from Painted Valley to get a birthday
present for the Duchess. Three men meet in an outpost some distance from Dodge:
a man with dark, somewhat wavy hair and a thick mustache; a cattleman with
silver hair and a neckerchief clasp in the shape of a steer’s head; and an
Englishman who seems to be a kind of frontier gentleman, and who bears an
uncanny resemblance to the dark-haired man. The silver-haired man, who calls
himself Bill, has an elderly sidekick. The two come across the cave of a
Comanche and his grizzled companion, and Bill notices that the Comanche
resembles a rancher they recently encountered.
Short
story by Don Glut in Radio Western Adventures, Bill Cunningham, ed., Pulp 2.0 Press, 2010. This story is a
tour-de-force crossover between many characters from radio westerns. The Texas
Ranger is Jayce Pearson from Tales of the Texas Rangers. The B-Bar-B ranch and Amigo are from Bobby Benson and the B-Bar B
Riders. The TM Bar and Tony are from Tom
Mix Ralston Straight Shooters. The Bar 20
is from Hopalong Cassidy, based on
short stories by Clarence E. Mulford. The silver-haired man is Hopalong
himself, while his sidekick is California Carlson. Topper III is a descendant
of Hopalong’s horse Topper. The Arizona rancher-pilot is the title character of
Sky King, while the Texan detective
is “Doc” Long from I Love a Mystery.
The Sentinel is the newspaper
published by Britt Reid, aka the Green Hornet. The former Texas Ranger of the
Old West is John Reid, aka the Lone Ranger. The Green Hornet radio series established that Britt Reid was
John Reid’s great-nephew. The Ranger’s Indian companion is Tonto, while Deuce
Cavendish is the cousin of his foe Butch Cavendish. The London Times is from Frontier Gentleman. The title character of that show is Times
reporter J.B. Kendall. The Marshal and
his Deputy are Matt Dillon and Chester from Gunsmoke. “That lovely lady at the Longbranch” and Doc are Miss Kitty Russell
and Galen “Doc” Adams from that series. The man with the colorful gun is Britt
Ponset from The Six Shooter. The
Mountie and his dog are Sgt. Preston and King from Challenge of the Yukon. The Sheriff of Canyon County is Mark Chase
of Death Valley Sheriff. The Kid and
his sidekick are the Cisco Kid and Pancho. The radio version of the Cisco Kid
is much more good-natured than the character’s original version in O. Henry’s
tale “The Caballero’s Way.” Also, Henry’s Cisco Kid was a white man whose last
name was Goodall, rather than a Mexican. The radio Kid likely assumed his
literary namesake’s alias for reasons of his own. Diablo and Loco are the Kid
and Pancho’s horses, respectively. The Lone Ranger’s friend is Captain Lee
Quince from Fort Laramie. Zorro is
self-explanatory. The red-haired man from Painted Valley is the title character
of Red Ryder, based on the comic
strip of the same name, while his sidekick is Little Beaver. The Duchess is
Red’s aunt. The dark-haired man is Paladin from Have Gun – Will Travel. Both Paladin and J.B. Kendall were played
on radio by John Dehner. The Comanche is the title character of Straight
Arrow, who is also known as rancher Steve
Adams. His sidekick is Packy McCloud. The year is conjecture.
