Six-Gun Justice by Paul Bishop

ON A RECENT EPISODE of the Six-Gun Justice Podcast, I talked briefly about Western wordslinger Will Henry and his short story collection I, Tom Horn, which I was reading and enjoying. The anthology was my first exposure to Will Henry’s work, but I was so impressed by his storytelling, I began to learn more about him and to trackdown several of his full-length novels. I have now read over a half dozen of his Westerns, as well two other collections of his short stories, and I remain stunningly impressed.

Will Henry and Clay Fisher are both pseudonyms used by Henry Wilson “Heck” Allen on the more than fifty Westerns he wrote between 1952 and 1978. In general, the moniker Clay Fisher was used to identify Allen’s shorter, pulpier Westerns. His books as Will Henry are more substantial—fundamentally and structurally deeper from both an historical and psychological perspective. However, I will circle back to this concept later in the column.

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1912, Allen never knew a time when he didn’t want to be a writer. At age twelve, he started sending short stories to Liberty and Collier’s—two of the top magazine markets of the day—which showed both his youthful idealism and his lofty aspirations.

His father encouraged Allen to major in journalism at the University of Missouri, but Allen found himself overtaken by wanderlust. Leaving the university after less than a year, he set out to follow his compulsion and explore the west—becoming a self-described “vagrant.”

Travelling wherever the road took him, Allen supported himself with a variety of odd jobs. He was a shop clerk on an Indian reservation, a gold miner, a stable hand, a sugar mill crushing operator, an industrial shop swamper, as well as uncountable other menial positions. Like many writers before him, Allen would later channel all these experiences into his novels in one form or another.

Allen’s wanderings eventually landed him in the sunny climes of Southern California where he continued to scrounge for work. He worked as a loader for a moving van company; put in a stint pickforking manure and hot walking polo ponies; filled in as a pump jockey at a service station; and of all things, a veterinary hospital assistant.

Still pursuing the idea of being a writer, he was able to secure a position as a columnist for the Sunset Reporter—a newspaper published in Santa Monica. He also turned his experiences as a licensed dog show judge into articles for Dog World and Shepherd Dog Review—how and why he became a licensed dog show judge is a mystery lost to time.

Always looking for writing opportunities, in 1935, he found a position as a freelance gag writer for Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising’s Barney Bear cartoon series.

Two years later, at age 25, he joined his older brother, Robert, as a junior story writer in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s short subject department before moving to MGM’s newly formed cartoon unit. His contract called for a salary of $250 a week with which to support his new wife, Amy Geneva Watson— whom he married in 1937 and with whom he would later have a son and a daughter. When possible, he also continued his travels throughout the West.

As Allen’s star rose at MGM, he began a long collaboration with iconic animation director Tex Avery. Allen had already worked with Walter Lantz— producer of the Woody Woodpecker and Chilly Willy cartoons—as well as other MGM cartoon directors. However, in Avery, Allen found a kindred spirit. The two men had a natural affinity and found the same things funny. Avery, who was known for his bawdy, surrealistic style of humor, called Allen “the best gag man I ever worked with.” As a result, Avery trusted Allen completely and encouraged him to let loose the full range of his comedic cartoon talent.

Allen and Avery collaborated on such characters as Screwball “Screwy” Squirrel, the ultra-sexy Red The Wolf, George and Junior, and Droopy Dog—including Northwest Hounded Police from 1946 (which is listed as #28 in The 50 Greatest Cartoons of all Time). In addition, Allen and Avery created many one-off cartoons, including King-Size Canary, The Cat That Hated People, The First Bad Man, Happy-Go-Nutty, The Shooting of Dan McGoo, Swing Shift Cinderella, Uncle Tom’s Cabana, Bad Luck Blackie, and Cellbound. However, when asked about his work with Tex Avery, Allen modestly downplayed his involvement, claiming Avery most often simply used him as a sounding board for ideas.

After a decade with MGM, Allen felt he needed a complete break from cartoons. Being an avid student of Western and Indian lore, he decided to try his hand at writing Westerns, even though he had read very little in the genre. To avoid any trouble with the studio—who he felt might object to his moonlighting— Allen chose to use the pseudonym Will Henry for his first novel, No Survivors, which was published in 1952.

There were a few Western writers, such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, who had occasionally cast Native Americans in a sympathetic light. However, from his earliest writings, Allen made intelligent and humanistic Indians an integral part of his stories.

Told from the Native American vantage point, No Survivors is a romanticized historical reconstruction of Custer’s final moments and the fateful stand at the Battle of Little Bighorn. It is told in the first person by the fictional John Clayton, who is posited as an ex-Confederate officer who once saved Custer’s life. Using Clayton’s journals, the action follows his post Civil War career on the western frontier. As a civilian scout for the U. S. Army, he desperately tries to head off the Fetterman Massacre but gets captured by Crazy Horse and integrated into the Oglala Sioux tribe.

For nine years, Clanton lives like an Indian, the adopted son of Crazy Horse and the husband of a medicine woman. As a Sioux warrior, he finds himself riding with the renegades against white invaders, but by the 1876 confrontation at Little Big Horn, he is forced to make a decision about who he truly is.

A rivetingly authentic story with strong historical content and an emotionally wrenching conclusion, No Survivors remains one of the best first novels I’ve ever read.

While he continued working on cartoons intermittently as a freelancer, the success of No Survivors allowed Allen to walk away from his position with MGM. From that point on, he supported his family by writing novels and short stories from his home in Encino, an enclave in the San Fernando Valley suburb of Los Angeles.

The pseudonym Clay Fisher was created when Random House rejected Allen’s second novel, Red Blizzard—a grim tale of a half-breed ostracized by both Indians and Whites alike, although both cultures are more than willing to take advantage of his inherent skills. Fisher’s treatment of racism in the story was well ahead of his time and possibly the reason for its rejection by Random House.

When Red Blizzard found a home with Simon & Schuster in 1951, Allen chose to publish it using the Clay Fisher pseudonym. From that point on, Allen began a practice of writing under both names—making a distinction in his own mind between stories he saw as historically-based (as by Will Henry) and those he felt were dominated by action (as by Clay Fisher). In reality, this determination was made by the caprice of the publishing houses. If Random House, Allen’s publisher of first choice, accepted a book, it was published under the Will Henry name. If Random House rejected a book, it went to another publisher under the pseudonym Clay Fisher.

Aside from his praiseworthy treatment of Native American characters in his fiction, Allen’s novels— with few exceptions—have two other consistent characteristics.

The first is his penchant for creating fictional heroes to insert into the context of his historical backgrounds. In some ways, giving readers this type of everyman character allows them to experience historical settings and events through the character as opposed to resorting to info dumps to put events in context. However, in doing this, he often made literary choices more consistent with the hero’s character than the actual facts of an event. In his defense, Allen did maintain his works were fiction built upon history, not fiction paraded as history.

Second, his heroines are almost always of exceptional beauty—more pedestal dweller than realistic portrayal—without much depth of character. This is not particularly obvious, as it only becomes notable with exposure to a wide number of Allen’s books—and even then, it’s remarkable simply because of the depth of his hero and Native American characters.

Despite these small drawbacks, Allen’s writing is remarkably vivid and accessible. I’ve found when I turn the last page of a Will Henry or Clay Fisher title, the story has left an indelible impression upon me. More than simple entertainments, his books make me think and adjust my perspective on events. And there are certainly millions of Will Henry fans who agree with me. Not taking into account the hardcover sales of 46 of his 53 books, Bantam alone has sold over fifteen million paperback copies of his books.

—PAUL BISHOP is a novelist, screenwriter, and western genre enthusiast, as well as the co-host of the Six-Gun Justice Podcast, which is available on all major streaming platforms or on the podcast website: www.sixgunjustice.