The Slickers
Authors: L. Ron Hubbard
S
ELECTED
F
ICTION
W
ORKS
BY
L. R
ON
H
UBBARD
F
ANTASY
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
S
CIENCE
F
ICTION
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
A
DVENTURE
The Hell Job series
W
ESTERN
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
© 2014 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; cover artwork thumbnail on back of book;
The Slickers
story illustration and Story Preview illustration from
Detective Fiction Weekly
is © 1936 Argosy Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from Argosy Communications, Inc. Story Preview cover art from
Top Notch Magazine
and horsemen illustration from
Western Story Magazine
are © and ⢠Condé Nast Publications and is 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 978-1-59212-616-3 EPUB version
ISBN 978-1-59212-789-4 Kindle version
ISBN 978-1-59212-357-5 print version
ISBN 978-1-59212-271-4 audiobook version
Library of Congress Control Number: 2007903615
FOREWORD
Stories from
Pulp Fiction's
Golden Age
A
ND
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 pricesâand 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 entertainersâreal 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 historyâhundreds 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 livesâand 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 Dumasâmany 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 Heinleinâand, 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 enduringâhence this seriesâand 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 admiredâas 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 from 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 romanceâaction 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.
âKevin 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 Slickers
The
Slickers
T
EX
L
ARIMEE
inserted his cigar below his scraggly mustaches and looked sideways at the stranger.
“Yep,” said Tex, “I'm on my way to New York, and I'm here to tell you right now that if any of these
greenhorns
tries to pull anything on Tex Larimee, they'll have to talk it over with
Judge Colt
first.”
He patted the bulge under his coat and, in doing so, displayed his bright sheriff's badge to momentary view.
The stranger tilted his bowler hat and suppressed a smile with his hand. The stranger had a diamond on his finger which matched the glitter of his hard eyes.
Tex, supposing that this partner in the smoking car had come there by chance, talked on.
“Old John Temple knows where to go for help,” said Tex, nodding his head vigorously and gnawing harder on the mangled cigar. “He wouldn't trust none of those city
dicks
. He sent right out to Arizony for his old friend Tex Larimee.”
“Who's John Temple?” said the stranger.
“What,” said Tex, “you ain't never heard of John Temple? Why, snap my suspenders, but you Easterners are the most ignorant ⦠Well, he's the biggest copper man in Arizony, that's what. He's got more millions than you got whiskers. He's so rich he uses solid gold cuspidors, that's what. An' you never heard of him.”
“Huh-uh,” lied the stranger, fingering the diamond. “What'd he send for you for?”
“Why, to guard him, o'course. Out in Arizony, a man don't need no guardin'. Why, you could leave a million dollars sittin' in the middle of the street and nobody would think of packin' it off. But New Yorkâwal, that's different. They'd slit your throat for a nickel in that town, I hear. John Temple, he ain't in such very good health and he wanted me to come East and bring him back home. And here I am.”
“You're sheriff out there or something, aren't you?” said the stranger.
“Sure ⦠Say, how'd you know?”
“Oh, you just look like a sheriff, that's all. I could spot your kind most anyplace. Big black hat, gray mustaches, high-heeled boots ⦠Sure, I know your kind when I see one.”
“Sheriff of Cactus County,” said Tex, proudly. “Been sheriff for thirty years and they don't show no signs of kickin' me out yet.”
The stranger got up and elaborately stretched. “We're passing Newark,” he said. “I think I'll go get my baggage together. See you later, Sheriff.”
“S'long,” said Tex, looking out of the window.
The stranger went up the aisle, opened a door and passed into the next car. He promptly collared a porter and thrust a five-dollar bill into his hand. “Here, take this telegram and send it when we stop at Newark, understand?”
T
ex was uncomfortable sitting on the red plush. He squirmed and shifted his gun into an easier position. He looked at the maze of chimneys which went sailing past and shook his head.
“Beats hell,” said Tex. “Ain't even room to breathe out this way. No wonder John Temple wants to go home.”
A few minutes later, after the stop at Newark, the train screeched to a stop in Pennsylvania Station. Tex picked up his paper suitcase and followed the other passengers down to the platform. Suspiciously, he thrust away the redcaps.
“Beats hell,” said Tex. “These here Easterners ain't even strong enough to carry their own suitcases.”
Disgustedly he stalked up the iron steps to the waiting room, intending to phone John Temple at the Manhattan Hotel.
The crowd was thick and noisy. Tex Larimee, standing a head taller than most of the men, gouged his way through the press, eyes yearningly fixed on the red-and-gold sign far away which said “Phones.”
“Beats hell,” said Tex. “Regular damned stampede.”
A sallow-faced man was coming the other way. His face was thinner than a knife blade and his eyes were hot. He ran squarely into Tex. The press of the crowd held him there for a moment.
Tex shoved him away but the man was hurled back at him again.
“Doggone,” said Tex, “you can't walk through me. What do you think I am? A shadow?”
The sallow-faced one drifted out and away and Tex lost sight of him. Presently the crowd thinned and Tex made his way toward the phone signs.
He leaned over the switchboard desk. “Please, ma'am, would you call up the Manhattan Hotel for me?”
The girl glanced up, startled by the mustaches and the big black hat. “Five cents, please.”
Confidently, Tex reached into his pocket. He scowled and tried another. He set down the suitcase and rapidly searched through his coat.
A baffled expression came over his leathery face. “Beats hell. I put that wallet right there in my hip pocket and I ⦔
“Five cents, please,” said the girl in a mechanical voice.
Tex repeated the search and then it began to dawn upon him that he had been robbed. Hastily he felt for his gun. It was gone. He grabbed for his star and clutched nothing but vest cloth.
The girl frowned and held her earphones on tight. A policeman came up and motioned with his stick. “Move along, buddy.”
“Look here,” said Tex, looking earnestly at the beefy red face before him, “I'm Sheriff Tex Larimee of Cactus County, Arizony. Iâ”
“That so?” said the cop. “Move along, buddy, before I have to get tough with you.”
“Tough with me?” said Tex, backing off to give himself arm room. “Look here, you
shorthorn
, when you bark at meâ”
“Move along,” said the cop.
A thin finger tapped the sheriff's shoulder. Full of fight, Tex whirled and found himself facing the stranger he had met on the smoking car.
“Having trouble?” asked the man in the bowler hat.
“I been robbed,” cried Tex. “I was coming through that crowd and some sticky-fingered
coyote
went through me like a bullet through butter. And then this blankety-blank beef steerâ”
“What's that?” said the officer, juggling his nightstick.
“You heard it!” roared Tex.
Nervously, the stranger tugged at the sheriff's arm. “You better come along with me, mister. It won't do you any good to buck the law.”
Tex picked up the paper suitcase and, still growling, followed his newfound friend out of the station and into the din of Seventh Avenue.
“We better have a drink,” said the stranger, tipping the bowler hat forward on his milk-white brow.
Tex yelled, “All right, but I've got to call the Manhattan Hotel.”
“Call from the bar,” said the stranger.
Overawed by the hurry and bustle and noise, feeling small in this dingy canyon of buildings, Tex tagged along, high-heel boots scuffing the pavement, spur
rowels
whizzing.
They entered a small barroom on Thirty-fourth Street, where the stranger seemed to be known.
“Better go into the back room,” said the stranger. “More quiet back there.”
Tex was still too worried about his money and papers to protest and he stepped through the door. The place was dimly lighted and poorly furnished with scarred tables and unpainted chairs.
A sleek-headed waiter took their order and slipped out with it.
“What the hell's the matter with people in this town?” said Tex. “They stare at you like you was something out of a museum.” He gave his big black hat a defiant tug and then straightened his mustache. “I don't think I like this place. All my life I wanted to see New York and now I'm here, to hell with it.”
“Oh, you have to get used to it,” said the stranger.
“I don't think I'd live long enough,” said Tex, “what with all them taxis scootin' around. Them drivers act like they was breakin' broncs. Where's the phone around here?”
Tex started to get up. A chilly voice behind him said, “Don't move, Bronson, and that goes for you, too, old-timer.”
Tex turned carefully around. He knew that tone of voice. A man had slipped into the door and stood with his back to it holding a .45 automatic carelessly pointed in the general direction of the table. The fellow wore a checkered suit and a flaming red tie. His nose had been broken back against his face and his mouth was an ink mark across his off-side jaw.
Bronson froze where he was and his eyes grew very round.
“I told you never to come back to this town, Bronson. I told you and I thought you'd have better sense. Get up careful and walk into that other door, understand?”
Bronson got up. Tex showed no inclination of moving at all. Tex's eyes were roving up and down the checkered suit.
Bronson whispered hoarsely, “Do what he says. He's a killer.”
Tex turned disgustedly and followed Bronson into the indicated room. The place was without lights or furniture. They stumbled over some mops and pails and the door slammed shut behind them. The key rasped in the lock.
Tex upended a pail and sat down on it. “Damn it, I've got to call the Manhattan Hotel. Will that gent be gone long?”
“Not long enough,” sighed Bronson.
“What's he goin' to do?”
“Get his pals and a car.”
“What for?”
Bronson sighed again. “Looks like we're going for a ride.”
“Will we be gone long?”
“You don't understand,” said Bronson. “We'll be gone a long, long time. They're going to take us out and
bump
us off.”
“You mean they're goin' to plug us? What the hell? I never did nothin' to them. And if they want to kill us, what'd that gent walk off for, huh? Why didn't he just plug us and get it over with?”
“He has to get his mob,” said Bronson.
“That's a helluva way to go about it,” said Tex. “I don't like this town more and more and besides, John Temple'll be gettin' worried about me.”
They sat there in the dark for a long time. Tex chewed up half a bar of tobacco, using a mop pail for a
spittoon
. Bronson burned a pile of cigarettes.
Finally Tex stood up. “I ain't going to wait.”
“No, no,” said the stranger, quickly. “Youâ”
Tex drowned out the rest of the sentence. Tex raised his heel and banged it against the lock. He tried it again, kicking harder.
With a crash the door flew open. Tex stalked out into the second room and tried that door. It was also locked. Tex raised his boot and slammed it against the door. With a shower of splinters it caved in.
Tex strode out into the barroom. Several men were sitting around with surprised looks on their faces, but the gunman was not in sight.
Tex walked out on the sidewalk and proceeded toward Sixth Avenue, glaring at every man who stared at him.
He found a cop on the corner and received directions about the Manhattan Hotel. It was up in the Fifties, a long, long walk from Thirty-fourth.
In spite of his high heels, Tex walked it and his indignation against his reception committee grew with every stride.
“Had to get his gang,” muttered Tex. “Had to get his gang. The yellow-bellied
sidewinder
. The pasty-faced son. Had to get his gang and there he stood with his gun in his hand and neither of us ⦠Hell!”
At last he found the Manhattan Hotel. He had never seen a hotel with phone service in the rooms before so he walked straight past the switchboard.
He asked the clerk, “Where can I find John Temple, sonny?”
The smooth-faced clerk eyed Tex with distrust. “You have some business withâ”
“Never mind about my business,” snarled Tex. “If you
slick-ears
ain't the nosiest pack of
lobos
I ever see ⦠What room's he got? Quick now.”
He got the room number immediately and bore down upon the elevators. He had ridden in elevators before, but he had never trusted them any. He stepped gingerly into a car and was whisked to the twentieth floor, leaving his stomach in the region of the tenth.
Getting out, he prowled the halls until he found the number he wanted. He began to beam. John Temple was near at hand and all his troubles would be over.
He knocked and then knocked again without receiving any answer. He tried the door and found it open.
At first glance the room appeared empty, and then he saw a curiously stiff hand jutting out from the other side of the bed.
Tex stalked across the rug and then came up with a jolt.
John Temple was lying with outflung arms in a muddy pool of his own blood. A knife wound showed in his throat, another in his chest. His jaw was frozen open. His gray hair was matted.
Tex stood there for at least two minutes without moving a muscle. He turned slowly around and saw that the room had been ransacked.
“Something,” muttered Tex, “has got to be done.”
He marched toward the door he had closed behind him, but before he could touch the knob it swung in to him.