by J. T. Edson
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APACHERIA SERIES:
Apacheria
Lockwood’s Law
ASH COLTER SERIES:
Gunsmoke Legend
Ride the High Lines
Storm in the Saddle
COMPANY C SERIES:
Hit ’em Hard!
To the Death!
HELLER SERIES
Heller
Heller in the Rockies
JIM ALLISON SERIES:
Rattler Creek
Blood Canyon
Thunder Gorge
JUDGE AND DURY SERIES:
Hang ‘em All
Riding for Justice
Law of the Gun
Trial by Fire
Barbed Wire Noose
Judgment Day
MOVIE TIE-INS:
Day of the Gun
Bill Tilghman and the Outlaws
O’BRIEN SERIES:
The Silver Trail
Hard as Nails
Mexico Breakout
Hangman’s Noose
The Deadly Dollars
Squaw Man
North of the Border
Shoot to Kill
Hell for Leather
Marked for Death
Gunsmoke is Gray
Cold Steel
Mean as Hell
Draw Down the Lightning
Flame and Thunder
THREE GUNS WEST (Writing with Steve Hayes):
Three Rode Together
Three Ride Again
Hang Shadow Horse!
WESTERN LEGENDS (Writing with Steve Hayes):
The Oklahombres
The Plainsman
THE WILDE BOYS SERIES:
The Wilde Boys
Wilde Fire
Wilde’s Law
Aces Wilde
STAND-ALONE WESTERNS:
Ride for the Rio!
Back With a Vengeance
Blaze of Glory
Tanner’s Guns
Coffin Creek
The Spurlock Gun
All Guns Blazing
Cannon for Hire
Montana Gunsmoke
Starpacker
Cougar Valley
SHORT STORIES:
Five Shots Left
i The author is too modest to suggest that, during his twelve and a half years’ service with the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, he was too valuable as a dog trainer to be spared from his duties for long enough to be taught to drive. However, anybody who wishes to think this is at liberty to do so.
ii Details of Jackson Baines ‘Ole Devil’ Hardin’s early career are given in the author’s Ole Devil series. His nickname arose in part from the way he deliberately enhanced the Mephistophelian aspect of his features, but mainly through his reputation among his contemporaries as being a ‘lil ole devil for a fight’.
iii Okasi was not Tommy’s real name, but an Americanized corruption of the one he gave when taken aboard the ship captained by General Hardin’s father.
iv The author was informed that, because of the circumstances and the high social standing of the various families involved—all of whom have descendants holding positions of influence and importance in Japan at the time of writing—it was inadvisable even at this late date to make the facts of Tommy Okasi’s departure public.
v Details of Belle Boyd’s career are given in: The Colt and the Saber; The Rebel Spy; The Bloody Border; Back to the Bloody Border; The Hooded Riders; The Bad Bunch; To Arms, To Arms, In Dixie!; The South Will Rise Again and The Quest for Bowie’s Blade. Her sobriquet the ‘Rebel Spy’ arose out of her activities as an agent for the Confederate States’ Secret Service during the War Between the States and she later served with distinction as a member of the United States’ Secret Service. The researches of fictionist genealogist Philip Jose Farmer have established that Miss Boyd was the aunt of Lady Jane Greystoke, nee Porter, wife of the 7th Lord Greystoke—who is better known as Tarzan of the Apes, see various biographies by Edgar Rice Burroughs—and adoptive mother of James Allenvale ‘Bunduki’ Gunn, some of whose career is recorded in the author’s Bunduki series.
vi Miss Martha Jane Canary’s career is told in the author’s Calamity Jane series. She also makes ‘guest’ appearances in some of the Floating Outfit books.
vii Details of the assignment are given in: The Whip and the War Lance.
viii Permission has now been granted for me to give details of a case in which Alvin Dustine ‘Cap’ Fog participated in England during 1928. Told in Mr. J.G. Reeder, Meet ‘Cap’ Fog.
ix The Texas Rangers were to all practical purposes abolished on October 17, 1935, almost one hundred years to the day after their formation. Their functions were absorbed by the more prosaic Texas Department of Public Safety and Highway Patrol. In the vernacular of the Civilian Band radios carried by many private and commercial vehicles, uniformed officers of the latter organization are known as ‘Smokies’ because their ‘boy scout’ pattern hats resemble the one worn by ‘Smokey the Bear’ on fire prevention posters. Details of modern Texas law enforcement techniques are given in the author’s Rockabye County series.
x Details of the career of Captain Dustine Edward Marsden ‘Dusty’ Fog, C.S.A. are given in the author’s Civil War and Floating Outfit series.
xi After having applied and been refused in 1849, ’56, ’62, ’72, ’82 and ’89—chiefly because the predominantly Mormon population refused, until 1890, to give up the practice of polygamous marriages—Utah was granted Statehood on January 4, 1896.
xii Cardinal: Richmondena Cardinalis, one of the Fringillidae family of seed-eating birds. Apart from the Pyrrhuhxia of the South-Western States, the only American bird with a crest and a conical beak. The male’s plumage is bright red, but that of the female is a yellowish brown. Frequently caught and sold as a cage pet.
xiii Hessian boots: designed for use by light cavalry such as Hussars, having legs which extend to just below the knee and with a ‘V’ shaped notch at the front.
xiv Details of Doc Leroy’s service with the Arizona Rangers is given in: Sagebrush Sleuth, Arizona Ranger and Waco Rides in.
xv Told in: The Drifter.
xvi How this influence was earned is told in the Ole Devil Hardin and Civil War series.
xvii Told in ‘The Paint’ episode of: The Fastest Gun In Texas.
xviii See the ‘In Explanation’ page.
xix How Captain Phillipe St. Andre had acquired his nickname, before his promotion, is told in: The Bullwhip Breed.
xx How this came about is told in: The Man From Texas.
xxi Sometimes erroneously called the Colt Model of 1853 revolver, made with four and a half, five and a half, or six and a half inch barrels.
xxii The Colt Civilian Model Peacemaker—which had a four and three-quarter inch barrel as opposed to five and a half for the ‘Artillery’ and seven and a half for the ‘Cavalry’ Models—weighed two pounds four ounces, the 1860 Army two pounds eleven ounces.
xxiii Used in this context, the term ‘Army’ refers to the caliber: .44 of an inch. Despite the military’s derisive assertion that it was easier to kill a sailor than a soldier, the ‘Navy’s’ .36 caliber was selected so that the revolvers’ weight—which would have to be carried on the seaman’s belt, rather than by a man who would generally be riding a horse; hand guns having been originally and primarily developed for use by members of the cavalry—could be held at an acceptable level.
xxiv Details of Waco’s career are given in various of the Floating Outfit series following Trigger Fast.
xxv The fastest recorded rate of fire for a manually operated double a
ction mechanism occurred on January 23, 1934, at Lewiston, Montana. Using a Smith & Wesson revolver, Ed McGivern fired five shots into a playing card at eighteen feet in two fifths of a second. See Fast and Fancy Revolver Shooting by Ed McGivern.
xxvi Big Muddy: colloquial name for the Mississippi River, by tradition the dividing line between the ‘civilized’ East and the ‘frontier’ West.
xxvii Ed McGivern, q.v., fired four five-shot fanning volleys in respectively one and two-fifths, one and three-tenths, one and a quarter and one and a fifth seconds; placing each set of bullets in an area slightly larger than his hand. While Doc Leroy was almost as fast, he was shooting under much more demanding conditions and at a somewhat longer range.
xxviii Including the ‘Target’ and ‘Bisley’ varieties, over 600,000 Colt Model P’s were made before production, which had commenced in 1873, was discontinued in 1941; mainly because the Company wished to devote all its facilities to the manufacture of more modern firearms for use by the Allies in World War II. Popular demand caused production to be resumed in 1955, with no major changes in design or finish.
xxix Paddy wagon: a large patrol wagon designed to transport a number of officers or prisoners. The name is said to have originated in New York because the majority of passengers in both categories were Irish.
xxx Soft-shell: A ‘liberal’ with extremely radical views.
xxxi Some details of Miss Martha Jane Canary’s career and capabilities can be read in the Calamity Jane series.
xxxii Vis-a-Vis: a carriage with the passengers’ seats facing each other.
xxxiii Goober-grabber: derogatory name for a native of Arkansas State.
xxxiv Jack McCall shot James Butler ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok in the back as he was playing poker at the Number 10 Saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota, on August 2nd, 1876. The hand Hickok was playing at the time of his death was two pairs—ace and eight of clubs and ace and eight of spades—which subsequently became known as the ‘deadman’s hand’. Hickok makes a ‘guest appearance’ in the ‘The Scout’ episode of: Under the Stars and Bars.
xxxv William Barclay ‘Bat’ Masterson: among other things, a deputy town marshal in Dodge City, Kansas and noted as a dandy dresser. Makes a 'guest appearance’ in: Trail Boss.
xxxvi Cricket: Gryllus Domesticus; a leaping orthopterus insect with long antennae and six legs. Something like a grasshopper in appearance.
xxxvii During the War Between the States, the Jayhawkers of Kansas were bands of irregulars who—like the Confederate States’ guerillas of William Clarke Quantrell, William ‘Bloody Bill’ Anderson and George Todd’s ilk—used patriotism as an excuse for arson, looting, pillage and other atrocities.
xxxviii Details of the Turtle family’s participation in Texas law breaking are given in: Ole Devil and the Caplocks, Set Texas Back On Her Feet and, by inference, The Quest for Bowie’s Blade, and Mr. J.G. Reeder, Meet ‘Cap’ Fog.
xxxix Pink-Eye: derogatory name for an operative of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.
xl Full curl pencil roll: where the brim’s round and dips deeply at the front and back
xli It would be many years before ‘black gold’, oil, became a major factor in the economy of Texas. How the cattle industry came to play such an important part in the growth of the Lone Star State, particularly in the impoverished years following the end of the War Between the States, is told in: Goodnight’s Dream and From Hide and Horn.
xlii Colt ‘Storekeeper’s Model’, a Peacemaker with a barrel of four inches or less and minus an ejection rod for removing empty cartridge cases from the cylinder.
xliii Examples of Doc Leroy’s manipulative dexterity with a deck of cards are given in Case Four ‘Set One, Catch One’ of Arizona Ranger.
xliv Bull Durham: one of the best known and most popular proprietary brands of smoking tobacco in the United States of America. Originally produced by John Ruffin Green, near Durham’s Station, North Carolina, in 1865, William Blackwell took control over the Company after his death in 1869. It has been claimed by some authorities Green had based the now famous ‘standing bull’ trademark from a similar illustration on the jars of Colman’s mustard which was available in powder form at that time.
xlv Told in: Ole Devil at San Jacinto.
xlvi Told in: Quiet Town, The Small Texan and The Town Tamers.
xlvii Told in the ‘The Campaigner’ episode of Waco Rides in.
xlviii To avoid confusion, in the text of the following chapters, the author will refer to Doc’s father as ‘Leroy’.
xlix Details of General Hardin’s participation in the Arkansas’ Campaign are given in the author’s Civil War series.
l It would be many years before ‘black gold’, oil, became an important factor in the economy of Texas. Neither cotton or other forms of crop-growing were carried out extensively. ‘Mustanging’, the commercial catching and training of wild horses—as is described in .44 Caliber Man and A Horse Called Mogollon—did not offer large scale employment or revenue.
li How these came about and were exploited are told in: Goodnight’s Dream, From Hide and Horn, Set Texas Back on her Feet and Trail Boss.
lii The operation of such an establishment is described in: The Hide and Tallow Men.
liii Javelina is the Spanish name, referring to the animal’s javelin-like tusks. Peccary derives from a Brazilian Indian word, peccari, which means the ‘animal that makes paths through the woods.’
liv Center-fire cartridge: one where the primer to detonate the firing charge is set in the center of the cartridge case’s base. In rim-fire cartridges, as the name suggests, the priming charge was inserted all around the rim of the base.
lv A description of a toggle link breakage and how it could be repaired is given in: Calamity Spells Trouble.
lvi Colt I860 Army revolvers intended for purchase by the military had eight inch barrels.
lvii A description of a Rocker ambulance is given in: Hound Dog Man.
lviii Caesarean operation: the delivery of a baby via a section of the abdominal walls and the womb of the mother when an ordinary birth is apparently impossible. Said to have gained its name through having been necessary at the birth of Julius Caesar.
lix Told in: Return To Backsight.
lx Told in Case Five ‘Statute of Limitations’ in: Sagebrush Sleuth.
lxi Told in the ‘The Juggler and the Lady’ episode of: Waco Rides In.
lxii Sergeant Magoon appears in: The Rushers and Apache Rampage. Due to an error in the documents from which the author obtained the facts of the story, he is referred to as ‘Muldoon’ in Trouble Trail of the Calamity Jane series.
lxiii In the open range days, the large ranches employed four to six men to work the more distant areas of their spreads as a ‘floating outfit’. Ole Devil frequently dispatched his as trouble-shooters to assist friends who were in difficulties.
lxiv Hippocratic oath: credited to Hippocrates (4607-377 B.C.) Greek physician called ‘the Father of Medicine’ and administered to those entering the medical practice on receiving a degree after qualification.
