Riders of Death Valley – Chapter 12: Thundering Doom

OUR STORY SO FAR:  Kirby appoints Davis deputy marshal with orders to arrest Jim Benton for murder.

Wolf, after placing his men at strategic spots for a surprise attack on the mine, orders Davis to serve the warrant on Benton.

Jim, questioning Davis’s authority, orders him off the premises.

Mary runs in to Tex and the others, who have just finished planting a fuse for a terrific blast in the mine tunnel, and tells them Jim is in trouble.

They rush out only to…

Honest to my grandma, I’m beginning to think that in between postings things happen in this serial that completely escape my notice.  I don’t remember Kirby appointing Davis anything—the guy (James Guilfoyle) who answers to “Judge Knox” is the only one with the legal muscle to do that.  Also, too: you cannot use the words “Wolf” and “strategic” in the same sentence…unless it’s something like “Wolf Reade has the strategic skills of a four-year-old destroying toy cars.”  (Little shout-out to my nephew there…)

What the crawl this week left out is that Jim Benton (Dick Foran) and Mary Morgan (Jean Brooks) ducked back into the mine, only to be followed by ineffectual henchmen Butch (Lon Chaney, Jr.) and Trigger (Jack Rockwell).  There’s a patently phony fist fight between Jim, Butch and Trig (Mary is careful to remain out of the way, content to just prepare coffee and sandwiches) leading up to a honkin’ big explosion, the result of a candle being shot off the wall of the cave and landing on that fuse planted by Tex (Glenn Strange) and the others.  Surprisingly, there is no gi-normous cave-in…but the noise does attract the attention of Tombstone (Buck Jones) and Tex, who have been exchanging much gunfire with some of the other men in the employ of Wolf Reade (Charles Bickford).

TOMBSTONE: Where’s Jim?

TEX: I don’t know…

“Not my day to watch him!”  Tombstone wonders if it’s possible Jim was in that part of the mine that blowed up real good, and so he instructs Tex and a couple of other men to keep him covered while he investigates.  When Tombstone enters the mine, he witnesses a rock dust-covered Jim and Mary getting to their feet, and Mary cries out: “Jim!  They’re still alive!”

Tombstone and Jim help the bad guys to their feet, and while Tomb would like nothing better than to introduce his fists to Butch’s bridgework, Jim calls him off.  “They’ve got some talking to do!”

And at Wolf’s command post, his goon Rusty (Ethan Laidlaw) has made his way back after escaping the clutches of Jim and the miners.

WOLF: Where ya been?

RUSTY: Benton was holdin’ us prisoners…

WOLF: Where’s Butch and Trigger?

RUSTY: They was in the blast…

WOLF: Are you sure of that?

RUSTY (nods): They was after Benton and the girl when it went off…

For a moment…one can almost detect a brief flash of regret on Wolf’s face at the news that his number one suck-up has perished in a mine explosion.

Nah, I’m just jinkin’ ya…he doesn’t care one bit.  The shootout between Wolf’s men and the miners continues…

WOLF: How many are there over there?

RUSTY: Oh…fifteen or twenty…

WOLF: Too many for us…

So Wolf decides a tactical retreat would be the prudent choice in the matter, and he yells at the others to head for the hills—“if you get scattered, meet at the cabin!”  With the cessation of hostilities, Tex, Borax Bill (Guinn “Big Boy” Williams) and Pancho (Leo Carrillo) race over to the cave entrance in time to see Jim, Tomb and Mary leading the recaptured prisoners out of the mine.  Tombstone directs Pancho and Tex to take them back over to the stockade, while Borax cautions that they’d better “hobble ‘em” unless they want to see them escape again.  (Time will prove Bill right on this score, by the way.)

BORAX: Hey!  What are we gonna do with the rest of ‘em?

JIM: Oh, let ‘em go…we gotta get this ore into town…

“And besides…we’ve still got three more chapters in this thing.”  There follows some stock footage of Wolf and five other riders heading back to the Hideout…and since we can assume that four of them constitute Wolf, Rusty, Dirk (Roy Barcroft) and Pete Gump (Richard Alexander)—the other two can’t be Butch or Trigger because they’ve been captured.  But to be honest, it doesn’t matter a damn because after a screen wipe, the number of riders has been whittled down to four as they reach the cabin.  (Wolf clearly resides in a bad neighborhood!)

Do all of them sleep in that cabin, I wonder?  It doesn’t look big enough to sleep six.  Well, that speculation will have to wait because a man rides up just as Wolf and the others dismount…and that man is Rance Davis (Monte Blue), deputy marshal and brown-noser to master villain Joseph Kirby (James Blaine).  Rance is not afforded the courtesy of dismounting, because before he can get off his horse Wolf snarls: “Don’t get off your horse…go back to town and tell Kirby you fell down on the job…”  (I bet Rance says once he’s out of earshot: “You just wait to find out what I’m really going to tell Kirby…I’ll tell him I was the hero, but that you bungled the whole thing…yeah, that’s the ticket!”)

Back at the mine, the men are preparing wagons to carry the rich ore back to Panamint.

JIM: Hey, Tomb…didja ever think we’d get these freighters fixed up so that they can stand the trip?

TOMBSTONE: Well, if we don’t, they can always say we tried…

What a strange, strange line.

JIM: Well, I sure hope we can…’cause we got enough ore to fill these and then some…hello, Mary!

MARY: Hello, Jim…

JIM: What are you doing?

MARY: I’m just taking some nice cold water down to the boys who are opening up that new vein…

“And I made coffee and sandwiches.”  Jim gallantly offers to go with Mary and carry the canteens of water.  The camera lingers on the wagon preparations for a while longer, and then fades to black.  (Can you feel the excitement?)

In the next scene, we have another one of those painfully unfunny comic exchanges between Pancho and Borax…

PANCHO: How much money are we gonna get for this gold ore by going to town?

BORAX: Plenty!

PANCHO: How much is plenty?

BORAX: Too much is plenty—don’t bother me with calculations!

This, of course, allows Pancho to do pretty much what has become his trademark throughout the serial—mispronounce words like “calculations.”  (It never gets old…much.)  “All right, boys,” Jim cries out in the saddle, “let’s roll!”  Pancho adds a “let’s went” to that and they’re off for Panamint.  Salty (Edmond Cobb), the Noah-Beery-Jr.-replacement who’s been put in charge of watching prisoners Butch and Trigger, waves goodbye to the caravan…little suspecting that the two men are feverishly working on an escape plan in order to keep this thing in motion for another three chapters.

TRIGGER: Hey, Butch…there they go…loaded up and headed for town… (They watch as Jim and his men pull out) I thought you was gonna do somethin’ about it?

BUTCH: I am…soon as they get far enough away…it’s a long haul to Panamint…

Something for which I am mighty grateful, by the way—because I’m only exaggerating slightly that about 75% of this chapter involves watching the miners caravan make their toward town.  But there’s a break in the action—Jim has stopped along the trail!

JIM (to Mary): Well, there’s the trail to the Johnson claim…you sure you don’t want somebody to go with you?

MARY: No, Jim…you need every man you got…I’ll have the Johnson miners over to our place in no time…

“Yeah…but who’s going to make our coffee and sandwiches while you’re gone?”  So Mary separates from the rest of the group, and the caravan lumbers along.  We then fade back toward the mine stockade, where Salty continues to keep an eye on the prisoners.  Now…don’t get me wrong; I like Salty—he’s a pleasant enough chap…but he’s just a little out of his depth at this turnkey business.  He let these guys escape in the previous chapter, and I won’t keep you in suspense any longer…he’s about to do it again.

BUTCH: Hey, fella…how ‘bout the makin’s for a cigarette?

SALTY: You fellas ain’t got anythin’ comin’…

BUTCH: Why, even in jail they give you a smoke…

SALTY: All right…step back…

(Salty pulls the cigarette “makin’s” out of his pocket and sets them down on one of the wooden sticks comprising the “jail”)

BUTCH (as Trigger rolls a cigarette): Thanks…I see you got your high-grade on the road to Panamint…

SALTY: Yeah…in spite of you and Wolf…

BUTCH: Yeah…I guess Wolf shouldn’t have tried to buck Benton…

Buck Benton being Jim’s twin brother.  (Little trivia for those of you still watching this thing.)

BUTCH: …Benton’s a little too smart for him…

SALTY: You’re right!

Once again, Salty demonstrates a startling carelessness: he reaches back toward the wooden bars for his “makin’s,” allowing Trigger to grab his left arm through the bars.  Salty tries to draw his pistol with the other hand, but it quickly knocked unconscious by Butch.  (Believe me, it’s as phony as it sounds.)  Then the two men—this is my favorite part—open the door to the stockade…no need for a key, they just walk right out as if they’re stretching their legs.  “We gotta get to Wolf quick,” declares Butch, “to tell him about that ore.”  (Of course you do!)  Butch and Trigger hop up on a pair of horses conveniently parked outside the stockade, and it’s hi-yo Silver away!

We see another establishing shot of the long haul to Panamint (as that fershlugginer Fingal’s Cave plays incessantly in the background), coupled with a long shot of Mary taking her horse up a steep trail on her way to the Johnson digs.  From her vantage point, she is able to see Butch and Trigger hauling ass back toward Wolf’s cabin, so she hauls ass in the opposite direction, back toward the mine…

…and returns in time to see the useless Salty coming to, massaging his sore head.

SALTY: They tricked me, Mary…

MARY: I know…I saw them…we’ve got to get ready for an attack, Salty…they’re going to tell the Wolf that we don’t have any men here to protect the mine…

SALTY: They ain’t comin’ here, Mary…they’re gonna round up the Wolf pack and attack Jim and the boys on the road to Panamint!

I think that may have been the only Crosby-Hope “Road” picture I’ve not seen, by the way.

MARY: The wagons!  Of course—that’s where they’ll attack first!  I’m going to ride and tell Jim!

SALTY: It’s too late, Mary!  They’re too far down the trail!

MARY: Well, I’m not going to take the trail—I’m going to cut ‘cross the river and take the Panamint trail at Twin Rocks!

“Great idea!  And I’ll make coffee and sandwiches!”  Mary saddles up, and there’s another shot of the caravan as it moseys on toward Panamint.  The scene then shifts to Wolf’s cabin hideout, as he and the boys stand around with little to do until Wolf decides they’ll mount up and ride toward Panamint so Wolf can round up some more men (you remember what I said earlier about all those other guys vanishing mysteriously on the trek back to the hideout).  Butch and Trigger pull up on their horses, saving the other thugs a trip.

WOLF: Well!  You’re a sight for sore eyes, boys…I thought they got ya…

Awww…you see, Butch!  The big lug really does care about you.

BUTCH: Yeah…they had us for a while…but we got away…listen, Wolf—Benton’s on his way to Panamint with four wagon loads of high-grade ore…

WOLF: When they’d leave?

TRIGGER: Right after dawn…

WOLF: Good…stay on your horses—we’re ridin’!

“But…I had hoped to freshen up first!”  So, with a total of six men, Wolf and his “pack” prepare to go chasing after Jim and his small army.  And speaking of chasing…

…Mary is racing to catch up to the caravan to warn them of Wolf’s attack.  Most of what follows is various crosscutting between Mary, the Wolfpack and the caravan—soon, Mary is spotted by Wolf and his men and they give chase.  More crosscutting ensues until Jim and Company spot Mary racing up towards them on a horse that realistically would have dropped dead a while ago.

MARY: Jim!  Wolf and his gang are right over the ridge!

JIM (to the other men): Take the wagons through that cut!

The rest of the serial chapter resorts to your standard shootin’ and chasin’…but it turns out I wasn’t joking about Mary’s horse; it falls down in a heap and throws her to the ground.  A wagon starts bearing down on her, and even Jim looks like he’s going to be unable to help…