Wolfpack Publishing has been reprinting the novels of
Gordon Shirreffs mostly in double-book collections, most of his work was historical fiction, including tales of the Civil War and hardboiled action Westerns. I recently went through the one-two combo of
Rio Diablo (originally published by Ace Books in 1977) and
The Proud Gun (originally published by Avon Books in 1961).
In the first novel, Vic Jamison is a former
Arizona Ranger who reluctantly re-joins when asked by his old boss
Captain Burton C. Mossman to undertake an undercover assignment in the titular Rio Diablo country, a wild country that has proven untamable by the law in years past, being run by "rustlers and mankillers". There've been a string of seven murders in the past twelve months there, honest ranchers and three lawmen. Jamison's old friend and fellow Ranger Bass Barnett had been sent in incognito, and after only three months undercover in the Diablos Barnett sent a smuggled message saying that he felt he was no longer able to be effective. Captain Mossman feels that it's more than just that, that something has Barnett, a man with twenty years of experience in one role or another in law enforcement, spooked so badly he is giving up on an assignment, and being afraid is not part of the man's makeup. Plus, there's the news that Mossman drops, that one of the murdered lawmen was a deputy sheriff who had been an old friend of Jamison's he'd served with in the US Cavalry, and another undercover man who'd just vanished without a trace was Jamison's old mentor. ("God help me for a sentimental fool"). A covert meeting with Barnett in a canyon reveals that the veteran lawman is afraid, because the people who are running the profitable criminal operations in the Diablos have "a long reach". And then a sniper plugs Barnett before Jamison can get any real information out of him.
Vic lighted a match and cupped the flame in a big hand. The mouth of the cartridge case was blackened from the powder discharge. Stamped on the rim of the base were the letters UMC and the numerals .50-.95. He remembered all too well that large hole that had been blasted into the side of Bass Burnett's head. It had been a Union Metallic Cartridge Company Express cartridge, one with a hole drilled into the tip of the bullet for the insertion of a .22 caliber blank cartridge, which would cause it to explode on contact and form a ghastly wound. No other man that he had ever known, with one exception, neither the best or the worst of them had ever used Express cartridges on anything but big game animals, and few enough of them on animals, as a matter of fact. Vic placed the empty cartridge case in a shirt pocket. It was a rare and unusual cartridge for that part of the country.
On his way into that savage country, he rescues a young woman from a flash flood, but as part of his undercover role he must establish himself with people who are enemies of her family. His investigation quickly finds the odds stacking against him, where he must survive vicious criminals and the unforgiving mountains and canyons, which are as dangerous as any man - Shirreffs really excelled at describing settings, and imparting to readers how harsh the American Southwest could be.
In
The Proud Gun, which features a complex plot and a hardboiled story, the protagonist Les Gunnell was once the marshal who'd brought law and order to the boom town of Sundown, in the New Mexico Territory. He'd taken up the badge after his predecessor, Ted Varney had started cleaning up Sundown and run the corrupt cattle baron Matt Horan, who'd once run Sundown with an iron fist, out of town - and was murdered by the outlaw gang the Chacon Boys for his trouble. After taming the town, Gunnell left the marshal's badge to his friend Will Ripley, who also married Varney's widow Ruth, for whom Gunnell also had feelings for, then rode away and took up ranching. He's returned after hearing Ripley was found murdered, taking a blast from a ten-gauge shotgun in the face. A witness who reported a man fleeing the scene of the crime was found at the bottom of a local mine shaft, neck broken. Ripley's deputy and stepson Holt Varney was wounded by a bullet from Horan's number one hired gunfighter, Heath Sabin. This all may have come about because Will and "crusading newspaperwoman" Ruth decided the whole county needed cleaning up, and were starting to do a good job of it. Gunnell has come back, reluctantly to take on killers like the Chacons and Horan again, because he feels he's no longer in peak fighting-lawman-type condition, but he figures he has no choice, even though it will almost certainly mean disaster and death and indeed, it builds to a rather bleak climax.
