Riders of Death Valley – Chapter 9: Death Holds the Reins

OUR STORY SO FAR:  Jim Benton and his Death Valley Riders begin operating the re-discovered “Lost Aztec” mine, owned jointly by Mary and Jim.

Wolf and his outlaws repeatedly harass them, under instructions from Joseph Kirby and Rance Davis.

Kirby, determined to get control of the mine, has placed among Jim’s employees some of his cut-throats, who install faulty cribbing in the main shaft.

Jim and Tombstone, becoming suspicious, make a personal inspection of the shaft and…

Here’s what I love about this serial: I start laughing from the moment the recap crawl appears in each chapter.  “Wolf and his outlaws repeatedly harass them”—that is hooty.  “Go away, you rough boys…and stop taunting us.  Or I’ll tell Mother on you.”

Anyway, last week we saw Jim Benton (Dick Foran) and his pal Tombstone (Buck Jones) plummet down a mine shaft, which concluded with the most unconvincing special effect in the history of serials: a couple of dolls having wood planks dropped on top of them.

Mary (Jean Brooks), hearing the sound of two action figures crashing to the floor of the mine, immediately rushes to where the unconscious body of the cage operator lies, and then she runs over to the shaft, calling for help from Pancho (Leo Carrillo), Tex (Glenn Strange) and Borax Bill (Guinn “Big Boy” Williams).  The three men sprint over, and are soon joined by the other workers—including the polecat responsible for Jim and Tombstone’s rapid descent into the earth, Buck “Kirby Employee of the Month” Hansen (Ed Payson).  A rope is quickly found, and Tex is lowered into the shaft to check on his friends. 

As Borax and the others lower Tex down, Borax decides that this is the proper time to hurl a racially-tinged insult at Pancho: “Hey, you Spanish rice eater!  Why don’t you come over here and exercise somethin’ besides your jaw!”  Pancho lobs a retort in his rapidly-getting-tiresome broken English—sadly, it does not sound remotely like “Bite me, gringo!”

Tex reaches the bottom of the mine and pulls away some of the timbers covering Jim and Tombstone.  “Hey, up there!” he calls out.  “They’re both alive!”  (“They just fell on top of a couple of action figures!”)  An optical wipe later, and all three men are brought to the surface.  As Jim brushes the dust off of his dungarees, he has a few words to say to the duplicitous Hansen:

JIM: Hansen…you had charge of putting in that tunnel cribbing—didn’t you?

HANSEN: So what?

JIM: Well, it wasn’t put in right…it’s wrecked…

HANSEN: Are you accusing me of wreckin’ it?

JIM: I’m accusing you of a lot of unnecessary delay and expense around here…and I’m not sure you didn’t have a hand in that!

HANSEN: I don’t take that kind of talk from anybody, Benton…

“So I say good day to you, sir.  I said good day!”  Actually, Jim is way ahead of Buck on this one: “Well, I don’t hire men who seem to be working against me…get out!”

Buck decides to light out…but not before connecting on the button to Benton’s jaw with his mighty fist.  Tombstone, observing the pre-melee activities, jumps on top of Hansen before Jim tells him to stand down—“This is my fight!”

“Hangin’ around all this time waitin’ for some excitement and this is what happens!” grumbles Tombstone as he sits on the ground.  As Jim and Buck scrap, Pancho does color commentary—with the sort of excited Spanish that Ricky Ricardo always used when his crazy redheaded wife got into trouble.  (“Hey!” complains Borax.  “Speak English so I know what you’re callin’ him!”)  Finally, having vanquished his foe, Jim orders him to make like a tree and leave.  “Tex, you and Borax see that all the rest of the agitators leave camp,” he tells his friend.

“Alligators?” asks Pancho.  “Agitators,” corrects Borax—but he tells his nemesis not to worry about being rounded up by Jim’s makeshift la migra: “You’re just a nuisance.”

TOMBSTONE (to Jim): This delay looks bad for Hogan’s note—you know that, don’t ya?

JIM: Well, I’m not worried about it…if we get to him in time I can have him renew it…

TOMBSTONE: Let’s get into Panamint…

JIM: Come on…

Ah, Panamint.  (“Now with 27% less rats in the hotel!”)  Not only do we see the same stock shot of the town with the guy still smoking his pipe, but footage of second-in-command Rance Davis (Monte Blue) entering the saloon and asking third-in-command Dan Gordon (William Hall) if Joseph Kirby (James Blaine) is in his office is judiciously recycled.  (I swear, it’s the exact same scene because I went back to Chapter 8 and looked at it myself.)  Davis is granted entrance into Kirby’s sanctum sanctorum.

KIRBY: What’s on your mind, Davis?

DAVIS: Buck Hansen just got in from the Lost Aztec Mine…

KIRBY: Everything all right?

DAVIS: Our plan to get rid of Benton and gain control of the mine didn’t pan out…

“I saw what you did there, Rance…and that must have been your plan.  My schemes never fail.”

KIRBY: They wrecked the mine, didn’t they?

DAVIS: Yes…but Benton escaped without a scratch…he’s sure lucky…

KIRBY: No…it isn’t luck…it’s brains…

Trust me on this one, Joey.  It’s luck.

KIRBY: …he’s outsmarted you and the Wolf at every turn…where’s Benton now?

DAVIS: He and his Death Valley riders are headed into Panamint…Hansen spotted ‘em…

KIRBY: Hmm…on their way to the bank, I suppose…to get more money…fix up the mine and continuing operations…

DAVIS: Hogan won’t give him any more money till Benson pays up his note…

KIRBY (brightening): That’s an idea… (He reaches into his suit pocket and pulls out some note paper) Benton’s note is almost due…he’ll try to get Hogan to renew it…I can stop that…

DAVIS: I hope you’re right…

KIRBY: I’ll take Gordon with me…you get over to the marshal’s, tell him to come over to the bank…on some excuse…oh, to write a check or something…just in case I have any trouble with Hogan…

And so getting up from his desk and grabbing his black hat, Kirby allows another optical wipe to set the scene at Panamint’s leading financial institution, presided over by the world’s worst bank president, Lafe Hogan (Jack Clifford)…

KIRBY: I drew this check on my account and I want the cash…

HOGAN: Well, that’s easy…give it to me and I’ll get it for you… (He stops once Kirby has handed him the check) I…

KIRBY: What’s the matter, Hogan?  The check’s good, isn’t it?

HOGAN: Yes, but…thirty thousand?

“I’m putting in an arboretum in the saloon.”

KIRBY: My balance is a good deal more than that…

HOGAN: I know, but…I have to keep the money working by making loans…

KIRBY: Then you haven’t the funds to cover your accounts?

HOGAN: Well, not on hand…but I can get it for you, if you give me a little time…it’s all in gilt-edged securities…

“I have some life insurance, Mr. Potter…a fifteen thousand dollar policy…”

KIRBY: What securities?

HOGAN: Well…principally notes…

KIRBY: Whose notes?

HOGAN: Well…this is hardly regular, Kirby, but…notes from men like Judge Knox…Doc Murphy…Jim Benton…Bill Winters…

KIRBY: How much is Bill Winters’ note?

HOGAN: Ten thousand…

KIRBY: Mm-hmm…I’ll take it…how much is Jim Benton’s note?

HOGAN: Why…twenty thousand…

“Did you hear that, Dan?  Twenty thousand simolians…how fortuitous that ten thousand and twenty thousand add up to thirty…”

KIRBY: I’ll take that, too…

HOGAN: Well, I’ll give you Winters’ notes…but I won’t give you Benton’s…

KIRBY: Why?

HOGAN: Well…it’d be kinda like selling Benton out…

And you wouldn’t be selling Winters out?  (I don’t know what this Winters guy did to Lafe, but he clearly does not have an ally in his friendly neighborhood banker.)

KIRBY: What’s the difference who holds Benton’s note?  (Menacingly)  You’ll sell me Jim Benton’s note, Hogan…or have a run on your bank!  I know a lot of depositors who’d get mighty scared if I was to let ‘em know you didn’t have the cash to cover their accounts…

HOGAN: You don’t leave me much choice—do you, Kirby?

KIRBY: None at all…

“Just the kind of douchebag I am, I guess.”  So as Hogan gets up from his desk to get Kirby the notes while pondering whether or not he could make a good living running a delicatessen, we cut to the same familiar stock footage of Benton and the Death Valley gang pulling into Panamint.

JIM (to Borax Bill): You folks go down to the store and get loaded up with supplies—I’ll be at the bank…

PANCHO: You better tole Borax not to drink too much of that tequila!

BORAX: I’m on the wagon!

Get it?  He drove a wagon into town, but he’s also sworn off spirits, and they often describe that as—okay, we’ll fix it in the editing.  The scene shifts back to Hogan’s office, and Lafe hands Kirby precisely what he came for—telling him once again that while screwing Bill Winters is no skin off his nose (“Winters is merely a simple dirt farmer and can do nothing for me,” you almost expect him to say) he feels as if he’s betraying Jim.  An unidentified cashier enters Hogan’s office to let him know that Benton is waiting outside to see him.  “Tell him to wait a moment,” Hogan tells his man.

“I don’t want him to see us here,” Kirby tells Hogan after the cashier leaves the office, and he gets up from his chair to exit through a side door with Gordon.  “I don’t either,” replies Lafe—which did make me titter.  (“I can’t have him passing judgment on me just because I have to associate with you wankers…”)  Kirby and Gordon decide to pause outside the door to listen to Hogan’s conversation with Jim.

HOGAN: Glad to see ya…how’s everything at the mine?

JIM: Well…not so good…we ran into a little trouble, it might delay us a couple of weeks…

HOGAN: Well, I’m sorry to hear that…

JIM: Oh, it’s nothing serious that we can’t fix…but I’m afraid I’ll have to take you up on your offer to renew the note…

Kirby and Gordon exchange knowing looks outside the back door entrance.

HOGAN: I’d like to help you, Jim…but it’s impossible…

JIM: You haven’t lost confidence in the mine?

HOGAN: Oh, no…it isn’t that…

JIM: Lafe…it’s not me…?

HOGAN: I hate to tell you this, Jim…but I don’t hold the note any longer… (Quietly) I sold it…

JIM: Sold it?  What for?

“These thirty pieces of silver.  Ain’t they pretty?  Look at the way they shine when the sun catches them just right…”

HOGAN: Listen, Jim…I’m a banker…

“…not a bricklayer.  Though the way things are headed right now…”

HOGAN: …and if I want to dispose of any securities I hold, I have a perfect legal right to do so…

JIM: I don’t question that, Hogan…but you certainly put Miss Morgan and me in a nice spot—who’d you sell it to?

HOGAN: Joe Kirby…

“Well…you and Kirby have gotten together, huh?” asks Jim in an accusatory manner.  “I couldn’t help myself, Jim!” pleads Hogan…and it’s about this time that a pistol emerges from a crack in the back entrance doorway…

…Jim has his back to the six-shooter, and he’s still wound up about learning that Hogan has sold the note for a mess of pottage.  “…let me tell you something, Hogan,” he threatens the banker.  “I know where I can get that money and I’m gonna get it right now!  If you and Kirby think you can rob me of that mine you’re crazy!”

Jim slams his hand down on the desk for emphasis…and that’s when a gunshot rings out, eliminating the unnecessary character known as Bad Banker Logan.  Both Gordon and Kirby beat a hasty retreat out an open window as Jim tries to get the locked door open.  Jim shoots at the door and swings it open wildly…but the two villains have fled the scene.  As Jim returns to the fallen Hogan…aw, doggone it—the law (William Pagan) would pick this time to show up…

JIM: Somebody just killed Hogan, marshal…

MARSHAL (examining Hogan, then noticing Jim holstering his gun): I’ll take that gun, Benton… (Jim hands him his weapon, and the lawman sniffs the barrel) Just been fired…why did you kill him?

JIM: I didn’t kill him, Marshal!  And while you’re wasting all this time (he points in the direction of the back entrance) the killers are getting away!

MARSHAL: Well, the evidence is mighty strong against you… (He grabs Jim’s arm)

TOMBSTONE: Sez you!

Tombstone appears in the doorway.  “Keep your persuader, Jim—I don’t like the smell of this.”  (Well, that’s probably because Kirby was in the office—someone really should open a window.)  But before Jim and Tombstone can get the hell out of Panamint, Kirby, Gordon and two others enter with guns drawn.  “Disarm ‘em, marshal,” orders Gordon as the corrupt lawman bleats: “Thanks, gents.”

The scene shifts to the Panamint Jail, which has just registered two new guests that will be enjoying the bounty of the county.

TOMBSTONE (as he paces in the cell): You certainly got your feet wet this time…they bring a murder charge against you, and they’re holding me for assisting a fugitive from justice—how do you like it?

JIM: Well, it won’t do you any good to get excited…

TOMBSTONE (yelling): Who’s gettin’ excited?!!

Outside Panamint’s drinking establishment—colloquially known as Ron & Terry’s First-Aid Station—Wolf Reade (Charles Bickford), this serial’s resident badass, is well aware that we’re thirteen minutes into this thing and he and his gang have not been asked to “repeatedly harass” our heroes.  So he has decided to operate on his own initiative…

WOLF (as a crowd spills out of the saloon): What are we waitin’ for?  Let’s yank ‘em out of there and string ‘em up…

“Anybody got any string?”

KIRBY: They sure deserve it, Wolf…

DAVIS: Now wait a minute…hold on here…this is a serious thing, taking the law into your own hands…

BUTCH: Well, Benton took the law into his own hands, didn’t he!

Let the record show that Butch (Lon Chaney, Jr.) obtained his law degree from some place on the back of a matchbook he found in Ron & Terry’s.

WOLF: I’m for givin’ ‘em what they deserve!

RUSTY: Lafe Hogan was our friend!

TRIGGER: He shot him down in cold blood!

WOLF: Let’s cut out the gab…come on…

Oh, this is not going to go well.  Wolf and a mob that’s turned ugly—which believe you me, wasn’t much of a turn to start with—head toward the jail as Borax and Tex watch from a safe distance.

BORAX: Wolf’s sorta gettin’ ‘em stirred up, ain’t he?

TEX: Yeah…

BORAX: We gotta get Jim and Tombstone out of that jail somehow…

TEX: We sure have…because with the marshal on Kirby’s side they ain’t gotta a chance…

BORAX: We’ll get ahold of Pancho and see what we can do…

Hoo boy.  The crowd outside the jail starts to swell in number, and inside the jail…

JIM: Kirby’s dealin’ these cards and we gotta sit in the game and wait for a break…

TOMBSTONE: Yeah, and I got a hunch he’s dealin’ ‘em off the bottom…

Outside near the wagon and horses, Pancho sings a Spanish song and is met by Borax and Tex.  My first question is—where is Mary while all this is going on?  (My other question is what the heck happened to Smokey [Noah Beery, Jr.]—is he working a case with Rockford?)

BORAX: Hey, Pancho…

PANCHO: You see Jim someplace…no?

BORAX: No!

TEX: Kirby’s men are startin’ a necktie party for Jim and Tombstone…they’re on their way to the jail now!

PANCHO: Yes…we must not let them do this thing!

BORAX: That’s right!  But how are the three of us gonna stop ‘em?

Well, that’s the $64 question…and because the scribes on this serial—Sherman L. Lowe, George H. Plympton, Basil Dickey and Jack O'Donnell—wanted to get in nine holes before the end of the day, they allow Pancho to concoct something idiotic that he apparently used to good effect one time in Mexico.  Pancho asks Borax to unload the wagon they just loaded, and as Wolf and Company get closer to the hoosegow, Jim is starting to crack from the pressure:

JIM: What could have happened to Pancho…and Tex…and Borax?  We should have heard from them a long…

TOMBSTONE: Listen…listen…don’t get excited…

And now…here’s Pancho’s cunning plan:

PANCHO: You take the little powder barrels and you soak them in the oil…then you light them with a match and put them on the end of your rope…twirl them round your head like that and into the crowd…the crowd will get scared and run away!  Do you understand?

BORAX: No…do you?

Hell, he lost me when he said something about trying to tie a rope around a powder barrel on fire.  Well, that’s their plan and they’re stuck with it…so they drive the wagon in the direction of the jail (with Pancho directing Tex to inform Jim and Tomb of their infallible scheme) as Wolf, his men and a few townspeople arrive for a good ol’ Saturday night lynching.  But worry ye not, TDOY faithful—our heroes have the law on our side…

MARSHAL: Sounds like a pretty big mob to me…I may not be able to hold them off…

JIM: Give us our guns back and we’ll stop ‘em!

MARSHAL: No…I can’t do that…

TOMBSTONE: Maybe you don’t wanna stop ‘em!

MARSHAL: That’ll be enough out of you…

The marshal heads out to greet the crowd, and Tombstone asks his partner: “Did I say something to make him mad?”

Jim shoots him a look that would do Oliver Hardy proud.  “Naw, he’s just touchy…”  Now, outside the jail—and I don’t know if you can make them out in this above screen cap (another edition of Mostly Dark Theater™—thanks to my BBFF Stacia) but there’s a couple of women out there in the crowd amongst the sh*tkickers…and when I first saw this I remarked to myself: “Those are some seriously bloodthirsty dames.”  Tex makes it to one of the windows in the jail:

TEX: Jim!  Tombstone!

TOMBSTONE (looking around): Am I hearing things?

(The two men finally catch sight of Tex)

TEX: Listen…we got a wagon up the street…when that mob breaks in here to take you out…this is what we’re gonna do…

Finally, the marshal addresses the unruly mob.

MARSHAL: Break it up, boys…break it up…let the law take its course…

WOLF: Step aside, marshal…we’re takin’ those killers outta there…

MARSHAL: Oh, no you’re not…

“I may have to issue each and every one of you citations!”

WOLF: I’m givin’ you just thirty seconds to get out of the way!

MARSHAL: I haven’t lost a prisoner yet and I’m not losing one now!

UGLY MOB: Get him!

Several men grab the marshal and treat him very roughly as the rest of the crowd disappears into the jail.  Pancho, Tex and Borax Bill set Operation What-the-Front-Yard? in motion, by twirling flaming barrels like this…

…I’m amazed they didn’t set themselves on fire, by the way.  Bill and Tex drop the barrels outside the jail and apparently they are enough to frighten the crowd (“Fire bad!”) to the point where as Jim and Tomb are being led outside, they punch out a couple of members of the mob and race to where Pancho is hauling ass down the main drag in the wagon.  Wolf looks at the flaming barrels, and gets this expression on his face (once again, apologies for the crappy screen grab)…

…as if to say “I cannot believe they fell for that old Mexican trick.”

BUTCH: Wolf!  Them kegs didn’t have no powder in ‘em—they was empty!

WOLF: Yeah, I know…they made monkeys out of us…round up the boys…

“And tell those idiots to stop flinging poo!”  Well, I can cut to the quick on this one because the remaining two minutes in Chapter 9 is essentially footage of Jim, Tombstone, Bill, Tex and Pancho racing to…well, wherever, with Wolf and his gang in hot pursuit.  At one point during the chase, Jim tells Tomb and Pancho to grab a couple of the horses pulling the wagon and ride off by their lonesome…

…yeah, Yakima Canutt is never around when you need him.  Which leads to the big stock footage cliffhanger this week—Jim tips over the wagon!  Oh, the humanity!