Riders of Death Valley – Chapter 5: The Avalanche of Doom

OUR STORY SO FAR: Jim Benton, by a clever maneuver, rescues Mary Morgan, his partner in Chuckawalla’s mine, from the notorious bandit, Wolf Reade.

But they are so closely pursued by “The Wolf” and his pack that they are forced to take refuge in a miner’s cabin to fight it out.

“The Wolf,” determined to capture Benton and wrest from him the map locating Chuckawalla’s mine, attempts to smoke them out of the cabin, unaware the cabin contains a store of explosives…

…which, if we apply simple laws of physics, means said cabin blows up real good.  By the way, these chapter recaps—I’m not entirely unconvinced that Benton (Dick Foran) isn’t writing them himself…only because there’s a little too much back patting going on in them.  (”Clever maneuver”…hmmph!)

Now, before you start getting weepy about never seeing Jim and Mary (Jeanne Kelly) alive again—you should know that the two of them fortuitously found a cellar underneath the cabin and they quickly hopped down into it before the dwelling went all splintery willy-nilly.  (Oh, and the bit in the previous chapter where Jim fired at the rope on the wagon in the hopes that it would split, thus causing it to swerve and miss them?  Well, to borrow the ServPro slogan: “Like it never even happened®.”)

Wolf (Charles Bickford) and his gang looked stunned at the remains of the explosion, and for a second it reminded me of what my nephew used to say whenever he tore down one of our Lincoln Logs projects: “Uncle Ivan, I never seen ‘struction like that before!”  The men, led by Wolf and second-in-command Butch (Lon Chaney, Jr.) ride over to the once-proudly-standing cabin and dismount to get a better look.

BUTCH: They never could have lived through this blast…

WOLF: See if you can find what’s left of them…

“Hey, Wolf!  I found a thumb!”  As the gang members start throwing timbers around, it’s eagle-eyed henchie Rusty (Ethan Laidlaw) who spots the cellar underneath.  “Get down there—take a look!” orders his boss. 

Descending into the cellar, Rusty calls out: “Give me a hand—they’re down here!”  Wolf orders Trigger (Jack Rockwell) to do what Rusty asks, and pretty soon the outlaw gang are bringing the unconscious bodies of Mary and Jim to the surface.  (Mighty thoughty of them.)  Our heroes are then placed on horses and the “pack” heads back to their hideout at Hank’s.

The scene then shifts back to Superstition Pass, where the “Riders of Death Valley” have set up camp.  Rance Davis (Monte Blue), the villainous dinkerplatz who’s only along to do the evil bidding of his partner, Joseph Kirby (James Blaine), is in a particularly scowly mood—I can’t do the screen cap justice but he’s poured a cup of coffee by Tombstone (Buck Jones) and Tomb looks at him as if he’s saying: “I can’t believe we brought out the Arabica beans for this dillweed…”

DAVIS: Well, gents…it’s beginning to look like Jim Benton never intended to come back…

TOMBSTONE: Whaddya mean, never intended to?  Maybe he can’t…

DAVIS: All right—maybe he can’t…well, we’re wasting a lot of time sittin’ around here…meantime, we might as well break camp and head back to Panamint…

“I’ve got orphanages I could be foreclosing on, you know.”  Now it’s time for Pancho Lopez (Leo Carrillo), he of the broken English that apparently had the Riders of Death Valley scribes frequently gasping with laughter in the writing room, to weigh in:

PANCHO: Senor Davis forget to remember that we sent Smokey and Tex to find Mr. Jim and Senorita Maria…

DAVIS: Well, if they found anything they’d be back by now…

PANCHO: Wait—what do you call those?

Pancho is referring to two men riding up—who turn out to be Smokey (Noah Beery, Jr.) and Tex (Glenn Strange).  “There it is!” exclaims Pancho, as Fingal’s Cave continues to play in the background.

TOMBSTONE: Find anything?

SMOKEY: Aw no, Tombstone…we…we followed that trail clear to the rock mesa and it just disappeared…

TEX: We looked three hours for a sign but there just wasn’t any…

TOMBSTONE: Well, that’s tough luck…Pancho and I will try our hand… (To Davis) You still figgerin’ on leavin’?

DAVIS: Well, I…I’m with this outfit to protect Miss Morgan’s interests!  If you think she and Benton will be back, why I’ll…

TOMBSTONE (interrupting): They’ll be back, all right…

Tombstone throws the rest of his coffee into the fire as he gives Rance the stinkeye.  “Give me that plate, Borax,” mutters Tex, addressing Borax Bill (Guinn “Big Boy” Williams).  “I’m hungry as a wolf.”  (“Smell like I sound/I’m lost in a crowd…”—half a tick…that’s Hungry Like the Wolf.)  In the meantime, Tombstone has called Smokey and Pancho over to the side for a secret powwow.

TOMBSTONE (to Smokey): Keep your eye on Davis…

SMOKEY: Is he in on this?

TOMBSTONE: You can never tell…

“Well…surely it would be okay to tell Bill and Tex…?”  Smokey assures Tomb he’ll do so, and Tombstone and Pancho saddle up and head off in search of Jim and Mary.

Speaking of which, the two mine owners are being held captive at the hideout known as “Hank’s.”  Wolf and Butch have apparently rifled through Benton’s clothing and found nada in the map department.

WOLF: He ain’t got it…

BUTCH: I’m still bettin’ Kate’ll find it on the girl…

But Kate (Ruth Rickaby)—a.k.a. “Mrs. Hank” emerges from the other room in the cabin to announce “she ain’t got it either.”  “And she says Benton’s the only one who knows where it is,” the harridan tells Wolf.

WOLF: Get back in there and keep an eye on her!

(Kate, looking slightly hurt, goes back into the other room; Butch then motions Wolf to join him in the corner as a close-up shows Jim is only pretending to be unconscious)

BUTCH: I got a hunch he’s playin’ possum…

WOLF (turning in the direction of where Benton is laying on the bed): We’ll find out…

Just wanted to stop the action here for a second to point out that the man (Ted Adams) seated in front of Butch, playing cards with Rusty, is the previously-referred-to “Hank”…appearing for the first time in this chapter.  Wolf draws his gun and barks: “Well, if he ain’t got the map we might as well finish him and chuck him down a mine shaft!”  He then fires a round right at the bedpost near Jim’s head, enough to send little splinters of wood flying.  Jim does not move a muscle; he’s confident only because he’s seen Wolf shoot before and has first-hand knowledge of his poor marksmanship.  Mary emerges from the other room, upset that her partner is being used for target practice.

MARY: What are you trying to do?

WOLF: Just trying to see how close I can come to him without hittin’ him…well, anyway—he ain’t playin’ possum…I shot one pretty close…

MARY: But he isn’t playing possum—he’s dying!  He needs a doctor!

WOLF: Maybe she’s right…Rusty!

RUSTY: Yeah?

WOLF: Tell Pete to hightail it into town and get Doc Hedges out here…

“Take ‘er back in there and keep an eye on her,” orders Wolf to Kate as he grabs Mary and shoves her in Kate’s direction.  Outside the cabin, Rusty issues Wolf’s directive to Pete (Richard Alexander):

RUSTY: Wolf says for you to hightail it into town and fetch Doc Hedges…looks like Benton’s gonna kick off…

PETE (as he heads toward his horse): Is it safe to bring him to this place?

RUSTY: Why not?  Hedges knows we run things in this district…

“And if he doesn’t, he soon will, bwah!”  So Pete rides off for the doc as the scene shifts to Tombstone and Pancho as they continue their search of Jim and Mary.

PANCHO: Too many wild horse feet prints here…I don’t see no tracks…

TOMBSTONE: Whaddya mean?  There’s a trail goin’ right along there, Pancho…

PANCHO: I don’t see no trails—and I don’t think you see some, too…

TOMBSTONE: It’s not always what you see—it’s sometimes what you don’t see, Pancho…

PANCHO: What you see…what you don’t see…what… (He trails off in indecipherable Spanish)

With Pete riding hard to get to town and Pancho & Tombstone heading in the direction towards Hank’s, it’s not long before Tombstone spots Wolf’s goon a-ridin’…and we learn that unlike the others, Pete actually has a surname—it’s “Gump.”

TOMBSTONE: Pete Gump…one of Wolf’s men…

PANCHO: How you know that?

TOMBSTONE: I’d recognize that horse anywhere…

PANCHO: Heh…you think the horse, he know you?

TOMBSTONE: He used to…now you got me talking that way!  Let’s drop a rope on him, Pancho!

Fortunately for me, the serial eats up a couple of minutes with a sequence of Pete trying to outrun Tombstone and Pancho with ridin’ and a-shootin’…but alas, Pancho soon lassos the hombre and jerks him off his steed.

TOMBSTONE: Slack off, Pancho—he’ll behave now…where’s Wolf got Benton?

PETE: I don’t know where he is!

PANCHO: Ah…you know where Senor Jim is, no?

PETE: No, I tell ya!

PANCHO: You know—we didn’t kill you before because we think you know where he is…now that he don’t know where he is, there’s no reason for him to live, no?

PETE: You just try and find out where he is!

Well, they’re not going to disappoint their prisoner—Tombstone puts his thumb and forefinger together to form a hole and he asks Pancho if he thinks he could put a bullet through it.  Pancho is game, and so Tombstone places the thumb-forefinger combo on various parts of Pete’s anatomy before the thug finally spills the beans.

PETE: Don’t shoot!  I’ll tell ya…Wolf’s got Benton over at the Yellow Horse Pass…

PANCHO: Yellow Horse?

TOMBSTONE: Tie him up, Pancho…

(Both Tomb and Pancho start to rough Pete up by tying him with the rope)

PANCHO: You tell the truth…and if you don’t tell the truth we’re gonna come back and tear you limb from limb…one to a time…

PETE: Hold on—wait a minute!

PANCHO: Yeah?  What now—what you want now?

PETE: I lied to ya…

He lied.  He lied a lot.  Pete reveals that Jim and Mary are being held at Hank’s mine.

PANCHO: Is that the whole truth?  And everything but the truth?  It better be!

TOMBSTONE: How many men does Wolf got?

PETE: Oh, nine or ten maybe…

“I’ve lost track—he’s stopped doing employee orientations months ago…”  Pete is trussed up firmly and dropped to the ground, whereupon he pleads “Don’t leave me out here—the coyotes will get me!”

“Don’t worry about the coyotes,” Pancho assures him.  “They’re pretty particular about who they associate with.”  Our heroes saddle up and…let’s went!

Back at Reade Enterprises, Wolf, Butch, Rusty, Trigger and Dirk (Roy Barcroft) sit outside the cabin waiting for Pete to return with the Doc.

BUTCH: You suppose Benton left that chart with one of his men before he came here?

WOLF: Maybe…after Doc Hedges brings him round, I’ll make him talk…

Inside the cabin, Jim thinks up another one of his “clever maneuvers”—he starts to rave in his “sleep,” calling out for Chuckawalla and telling him he’s got “his map.”  Hank, on guard duty, gets a funny look in his eye that essentially says “Here’s where I put the screws to Wolf and get the mine for myself.”  He goes over to the bed where Jim lays and when Benton asks for water, Hank is only too happy to get him a dipper full of H2O.  Naturally, this is what results:

The old-take-your-gun-while-I-give-you-a-hug trick…and you fell for it.  “Make a sound and you’re a dead man,” warns Jim as he orders Hank to get Kate…quietly.  (How someone as dumb as Hank has kept from perishing in a mine cave-in all these years is a question I can’t answer.)

JIM: Call your wife in here…but make it natural…

“Oh, bunny biscuit!  Angel drawers!  Could you come in here a moment?”  With the help of Mary, Benton soon has Mr. and Mrs. Hank tied up like a telephone party line as the action shifts outside.

DIRK (coming back from lookout duty): No sign of the Doc yet…

BUTCH: Yeah…Benton might up and die on us before the Doc gets here…

So Wolf orders Rusty—who was having a little siesta, so I found that a bit rude—to go inside and check on Benton.  Mary, peering out the door, sees Rusty headed in their direction and alerts Jim, who connects with a rabbit punch that sends Rusty down for the full count.  Jim and Mary then sneak out the back door…and though there are horses conveniently parked outside, they do have to take the time to saddle two of them.  Back inside, the tied-up Kate managed to tip the table over on top of Rusty, bringing him to—and so he alerts Wolf and the others that once again there’s been a breach of the perimeter.  By this time, Jim and Mary are a-ridin’.

Here’s the great thing about western serials: most of the action basically involves people chasing one another on horses, which eats up a lot of running time and helps me out in the long run—since I don’t have to transcribe too much dialogue.  As Wolf and his pack go after Jim and Mary, the whole kit and kaboodle of them ride past Tombstone and Pancho, who observe from high upon a ridge: “Look—there goes Mr. Jim and Senorita Maria!”

TOMBSTONE (seeing only one rider chasing his friend): Benton riding away from one man?  That don’t make sense…

PANCHO (as several others follow): Hey—look!  Look!  There’s plenty more men—that do make senses!

TOMBSTONE: Pancho…

PANCHO: Yes?

TOMBSTONE: …go back to camp and get the rest of the men—I’ll follow that gang!

Pancho rides off, and we have more riding.  The lone man that was following Jim was Henchman Dirk, who stops to allow Wolf and the others to catch up.

BUTCH (pointing off into the distance): They’re headed for Needle-Eye Cut at the end of the valley…

WOLF: Fine…Rusty—you and Trigger ride to the top of that ridge…throw down enough boulders to block the cut…

Yeah, you should know by now—never send a henchman to do a master villain’s work.  Because with more riding, Jim and Mary—followed by Wolf and the rest of his posse—are headed for the cut with breakneck speed as Rusty and Trigger start an avalanche (of doom, no less) that is guaranteed to crush the two of them and keep the Lost Aztec Mine a secret forever!