The producers of Wild West Podcast present a special reading of Robert E Howard’s public domain novel Boot Hill Payoff. The production is for all of those stay at home western novel lovers who need a little entertainment to break the boredom from COVID lockdown.
Buckle up for a wild ride through the dusty trails of the old West, as we unravel the thrilling tale of "The Last Ride," published in the 1935's Western Aces. Expect an action-packed journey filled with brotherhood, betrayal, and high-stakes bank heists. Through an audacious robbery planned by the Laramy brothers, we explore how these men navigate their bonds of brotherhood and loyalty in a life of crime. Will the youngest brother, Bucky, resist their criminal status quo and change the course of their lives?
Hold your breath as we return to San Leon, where gunfire greets Buck Laramy. As he steps back into a town gripped by a fresh bank robbery, our second chapter unveils Buck's brave confrontation with his past. Can he break free from the chains of his history and bring justice to San Leon? Stay tuned as we dissect the suspenseful twists and turns of this engrossing western saga. The fate of the Laramy brothers lies just a play button away. Tune in, sit back and let us transport you back to the thrilling era of the Wild West!
This story was originally published in the October 1935 issue of Western Aces. Starting life as an unsold submission written by pulp author Chandler Whipple, popular writer Robert E. Howard offered to rework and improve the tale. Later published in book form and in other places as The Last Ride, Wild West Podcast produced the audio version of the original transcript as it was first published. This story is in the public domain.
Return of the Great Hunters
Cattle Drives Website
Legends of Dodge City Website
Order Books
The producers of Wild West Podcast present a special reading of Robert E Howard’s public domain novel Boot Hill Payoff. The production is for all of those stay at home western novel lovers who need a little entertainment to break the boredom from COVID lockdown.
Buckle up for a wild ride through the dusty trails of the old West, as we unravel the thrilling tale of "The Last Ride," published in the 1935's Western Aces. Expect an action-packed journey filled with brotherhood, betrayal, and high-stakes bank heists. Through an audacious robbery planned by the Laramy brothers, we explore how these men navigate their bonds of brotherhood and loyalty in a life of crime. Will the youngest brother, Bucky, resist their criminal status quo and change the course of their lives?
Hold your breath as we return to San Leon, where gunfire greets Buck Laramy. As he steps back into a town gripped by a fresh bank robbery, our second chapter unveils Buck's brave confrontation with his past. Can he break free from the chains of his history and bring justice to San Leon? Stay tuned as we dissect the suspenseful twists and turns of this engrossing western saga. The fate of the Laramy brothers lies just a play button away. Tune in, sit back and let us transport you back to the thrilling era of the Wild West!
This story was originally published in the October 1935 issue of Western Aces. Starting life as an unsold submission written by pulp author Chandler Whipple, popular writer Robert E. Howard offered to rework and improve the tale. Later published in book form and in other places as The Last Ride, Wild West Podcast produced the audio version of the original transcript as it was first published. This story is in the public domain.
Return of the Great Hunters
Cattle Drives Website
Legends of Dodge City Website
Order Books
This story was originally published in the October 1935 issue of Western Aces Starting life as an unsold submission written by a pulp author, chandler Whipple. Popular writer Robert E Howard offered to rework and improve the tale, later published in book form and in other places as the Last Ride. Wild West's podcast presents the original transcript as it was first published. The story is in the public domain.
Speaker 1:Five men were riding down the winding road that led to San Leon and one was singing in a toneless monotone. Early in the morning in the month of May Brady came down on the morning train. Brady came down on the shining star and he shot Mr Duncan in behind the bar. Shut up, shut up. It was the youngest of the riders who ripped out like that, a lanky, toe-headed kid with a touch of pallor under his tan and a rebellious smolder in his hot eyes. The biggest man of the five grinned Bucky's nervous. He jeered genially you don't want to be no Dern Bandit, do you, bucky? The youngest cloured at him that. Welten your jaw to answer that, jim, he growled. You fit like a catamount. Agreed, big Jim, placidly. I thought we'd never get you on your kaius and started for San Leon without knocking you in the head About. The only way you show your larramy Bucky is in the handle of your fists Taint. No honor to be a larramy flared Bucky. You and Luke and Tom and Hank has dragged the name through slime. For the last three years you've been worse than a pack of starving lobos, stealing cattle and horses, robbing folks. Why the country's near-roont. And now you're headed to San Leon to put on the final touch, robbing the cattleman's bank, when you know Dern well, to help the ranchman got from that bank's been all that's kept him on their feet.
Speaker 1:Old man Brown stretched himself night of the bustin' point to help folks. He gulped and fought back tears that betrayed his extreme youth. His brothers grinned tolerantly. It's the last time. He informed them bitterly. You won't get me into no raid again. It's the last time for all of us, said big Jim, biting off a cut of tobacco. We're through after this job. We'll live like honest men in Mexico. Serve your right. If a posse caught us and hanged us all, said Bucky viciously, not a chance. Big Jim's placidity was unruffled.
Speaker 1:Nobody but us knows the trail that follows the secret waterholes across the desert. No posse dared to follow us. Once out of town and headed south for the border. The devil his self couldn't catch us. I wonder if anybody ever stumbled onto our secret hideout up in the Los Diablos Mountains used Hank, I doubt it Too well hid Like the desert trail. Nobody but us knows them mountain trails. It sure served us well. Think of all the steers and horses we've hit there and drove through the mountains to Mexico, and the times we laid up there laughing in our sleeves as the posse chased around a circle.
Speaker 1:Bucky muttered something under his breath. He retained no fond memories of the hidden lair high up in the barren diablos. Three years before he had reluctantly followed his brothers into it from the little ranch in the foothills where old man Laramie and his wife had worn away their lives in futile work. The old life when their parents lived and held their wild sons in check had been drab and hard, but it lacked the bitterness he had known when cooking and tending house for his brothers in that hidden den from which they had ravaged the countryside. Four good men gone. Bad, mighty bad. San Leon lays if slumbering in the desert heat.
Speaker 1:As the five brothers rode up to the doors of the cattleman's bank, none noted their coming. The red-loaded saloon, favorite rendezvous for the masculine element of San Leon, stood at the other end of the town and out of sight, around a slight bend in the street. No words were passed. Each man knew his part beforehand. The three elder Laramie slid lively out of their saddles, throwing their reins to Bucky and Luke, the second youngest. They strode into the bank with a soft jingle of spurs and a creak of leather closing the door behind them. Luke's face was impassive, as in images, as he dragged leisurely on a cigarette, though his eyes gleamed between the slitted lids. But Bucky sweated and shivered, twisting nervously in his saddle.
Speaker 1:By some twist of destiny, one son had inherited all the honesty that was his parents to transmit. He had kept his hands clean. Now, in spite of himself, he was scarred with their brand. He started convulsively as a gun crashed inside the bank. Like an echo came another reverberation. Luke's colt was in his hand as he snatched one foot clear of the stirrup. Then feet pounded toward the door and the door bust open to admit the three outlaws. They carried bulging canvas sacks and Hank's sleeve was crimson Ride. Like hell, grunted Big Jim, forking his ron. Old Browne throwed down on Hank Hold fool. I had to salivate him permanent. And like hell it was.
Speaker 1:They rode straight down into the street toward the desert, yelling and firing as they went. They thundered past houses from which startled individuals peered bewilderedly past stores where leathery-faced storekeepers were dragging forth blue-barrelled scatterguns. They swept through the futile rain of lead that poured from the excited and befuddled crowd in front of the red load and whirled on toward the desert that stretched south of San Leon. But not quite to the desert, For as they rounded the last bend in the twisting street and came abreast of the last house in the village, they were comforted by the gray-bearded figure of old Pop Anders, sheriff of San Leon County.
Speaker 1:The old man's gnarled right hand rested on the ancient single-action colt on his thigh. His left was lifted in a seemingly futile command to halt. Big Jim cursed and sawed back on the rains, and the big ron slid to a halt. Get out of the way, pop, roared. Big Jim, we don't want to hurt you.
Speaker 1:The old warrior's eyes blazed with righteous wrath. Robbed the bank this time, eh, he said in cold fury his eyes on the canvas. Sacks Only spilt blood too. Good thing Frank Laramie died before he could know what skunks his boys turned out to be. You ain't content to steal our stock till we're not bankrupt, you gotta rob our bank and take what little money we got left for a new start. Why you damned human sidewonders? The old man shrieked, his control snapping suddenly. Ain't there nothing this too low down for you to do? Behind them sounded the pound of running feet and a scattering banging of guns. The crowd from the red load was closing in. You've wasted our time long enough.
Speaker 1:Old man Roared Luke, jabbing in the spurs and sending his horse raring and plunging toward the indomitable figure. Get out of the way or the old single-action jumped free. In the gnarled hand, two shots roared together and Luke's sombrero went skyrocketing from his head. But the old sheriff fell face forward in the dust with a bullet through his heart and the Laramie gang swept on to the desert feeding their dust to their hurriedly mounted and disheartened pursuers. Only young Buck Laramie looked back to see the door of the last house fly open and a pigtailed girl run out to the still figure in the street. It was the sheriff's daughter, judy. She and Buck had gone to the same school in the old days. Before the Laramie hit the wolf trail, buck had always been her champion. Now she went down on her knees in the dust beside her father's body, seeking frantically for a spark of life where there was none.
Speaker 1:A red film blazed before Buck Laramie's eyes as he turned his livid face toward his brothers. Hell, luke was fretting. I didn't aim to salivate him permanent. The old lobo would hung everyone of us if he could have. But just the same, I didn't aim to kill him.
Speaker 1:Something snapped in Bucky's brain. You didn't aim to kill him. He shrieked no, but you did. You're all a pack of low down sign-winderers, just like he said. There ain't nothing too dirty for you. Your brain just is clenched fists in the extremity of his passion. You filthy scum. He sobbed. When I'm growing up I'm coming back here and make up for every dollar you've stole, ever life you took. I'll do it if they hang me for trying to help me. His brothers did not reply. They did not look at him. Big Jim hummed flatly and absently. Some say he shot him with a.38. Some say he shot him with a.41. But I say he shot him with a.44. For I saw him as he lay on the bar room floor.
Speaker 1:Bucky subsided, slumped in his saddle and rode dismally on, sandly on in the old life. Lay behind them all Somewhere south of the hazy horizon, the desert stretched into Mexico. Where lay their future destiny? And his destiny was inextricably interwoven with that of his brothers. He was in outlaw too now, and he must stay with the clan to the end of their last ride.
Speaker 1:Some guiding angel must have caused Buck Laramie to lean forward to pat the head of his tired sorrel, for at that instant a bullet ripped through his hat brim instead of his head. It came as a startling surprise, but his reaction was instant. He leapt from his horse and dove for the protection of a sand bank. A second bullet, spurting dust at his heels. Then he was undercover, peering warily out, colt in hand, the tip of a white sombrero showed above the rim of sand 200 yards in front of him. Laramie blazed away at it though, knowing as he pulled the trigger that the range was too long and the target too small for six-gun accuracy. Nevertheless, the hat top vanished. Taking no chances, muttered Laramie. How in the hell is he here? I am a good hours ride from San Leon and folks potting at me already Looks bad for what I'm aiming to do. Reckon it's somebody that knows me after all these years. He cannot believe it possible that anyone would recognize the lanky, half grown boy of six years ago and the bronzed, range-hardened man who was returning to San Leon to keep the vow he had made.
Speaker 1:As his clan rode southward with two dead men and a looted bank behind them, the sun was burning hot and the sand felt like an oven beneath Laramie. His canteen was slung to his saddle and his horse was out of his reach, drooping under a scrubby mesquite. The other fellow would eventually work around to a point where his rifle would outrange Laramie's six-gun, or he might shoot the horse and leave Buck a foot in the desert. The instant his attackers' next shot sang past his refuge, he was up and away in a shooting weaving run to the next sand hill to the right and slightly forward of his original position. He wanted to get in close quarters with his unknown enemy. He wiggled from cover to cover and sprinted in short dashes over the narrow strips of open ground, taking advantage of every rock, cactus bed and sandbank, with lead hissing and spitting at him all the way.
Speaker 1:The hidden gunman had guessed his purpose and obviously had no desire for a close-range fight. He was slinging lead every time Laramy showed an inch of flesh, cloth or leather and buck counted the shots. He was within striking distance of the sand rim where he believed the fellow's rifle was empty. Springing recklessly to his feet, he charged straight at his hidden enemy, his six-gun blazing. He had miscalculated about the rifle, for a bullet tore through the slack of his shirt. But then the Winchester was silent and Laramy was raking the rim with such a barrage of lead that the gunman evidently dared not to lift himself high enough to line the sights of a six-gun. But a pistol was something that must be reckoned with.
Speaker 1:And as he spent his last bullet, laramy dove behind a rise of sand and began desperately to jam cartridges into his empty gun. He had failed to cross the sand rim in that rush, but another try would gain it, unless hot lead cut him down on the way. The drum of hoofs reached his ears suddenly and, glaring over his shelter, he saw a pinto pony beyond the sand rim, heading in the direction of San Leon. Its rider wore a white sombrero. Damn. Laramy slammed the cylinder in place and sent a slug, winging after the rapidly receding horseman. But he did not repeat the shot. The fellow was already out of range, wrecking.
Speaker 1:The work was getting too close for him, he ruminated as he trudged back to his horse Hell. Maybe he didn't want me to get a good look at him, but why? Nobody in these parts would be shy about shooting at a Laramy if they knew him as such. But who'd know, I was a Laramy. He swung up into the saddle then absently slapped the saddlebags and the faint clicking that resulted soothed him. Those bags were loaded with fifty thousand dollars in gold eagles, and every penny was meant for the people of San Leon. It'll help pay the debt the Laramies owe for the money the boys stole. He confided to the uninterested soil. How am I going to pay back for the men they killed, as more than I can figure out, but I'll try. The money represented all he had accumulated from the sale of the Laramy stock and holdings in Mexico, holdings bought with money stolen from San Leon. It was his by right of inheritance, for he was the last of the Laramies.
Speaker 1:Big Jim, tom, hank, luke all had found trailer rails in in that lawless country south of the border. As they had lived, so had they died, facing their killers with smoking guns in their hands. They had tried to live straight in Mexico, but the wild blood was still there. Fate had dealt their hands and Buck looked upon it as a slate wiped clean, a record closed, with the exception of Luke's fate. That memory vaguely troubled him now as he rode towards San Leon to pay the debts his brother contracted.
Speaker 1:Folks said Luke drawed first. He muttered, but it wasn't like him to pick a barroom fight. Funny, the fella that killed him cleared out so quick if it was a fair fight. He dismissed the old problem and reviewed the recent action upon himself. If he'd known I was a Laramy, it might have been anybody. But how could he know Joel Walters wouldn't talk? No, joel Walters wouldn't talk. And Joel Walters, old time friend of Laramy's father long ago and owner of the Box W Ranch, was the only man who knew. Buck Laramy was returning to San Leon. San Leon at last, kiyos, he murmured as he topped the last desert sand hill that sloped down to the town. Last time I seen it was, under circumstances, most what the devil. He staggered and stiffened as a rattle of gunfire burst on his ears. Battle and sandley on, he urged his weary steed down the hill. Two minutes later history was repeating itself.
Speaker 2:My name is Mike King. I am the producer of Wild West Podcast, fred Smalley, and I would like to thank you for tuning into another chapter of Boot Hill Pay Off. We hoped you enjoyed this show and we would like to invite you to join us for Chapter 2, owl Hoot Ghost. In Chapter 2, buck Laramie fulfills his promise and returns to Sandley on, only to find a gang of robbers invading the Cattleman's Bank, the same bank his brothers robbed six years earlier. A mystery arises during the gunplay when the townspeople insist that the robbers are the returning Laramie brothers.