"Dusky & Other Tales" by Jim Kjelgaard

 

Dusky & Other Tales by Jim Kjelgaard Vintage Lists, 2023   Dusky & Other Tales collects six of Jim Kjelgaard’s original short tales published by the famous pulp magazine, Short Stories: “The Wild Pack” (Mar. 10, 1944); “Reputation” (April 25, 1945); “Cheena” (Nov. 10, 1945); “Billy Dancer’s Bull” (Dec. 25, 1945); “Dusky” (Feb. 10, 1946); and “Arbey Holden Rides Again” (Mar. 10, 1947). Short Stories is considered as one of the big four pulp magazines by aficionados. The others are: Adventure, Argosy, and Blue Book. Short Stories began life in 1890 as a literary magazine. It published stories by highly regarded writers like Rudyard Kipling, Émile Zola, and Bret Harte. After being acquired by Doubleday in 1910, Short Stories became an “all-fiction” magazine, which is a fancy way of saying a genre magazine. While the magazine began publishing genre fiction, it was, perhaps, the most highly regarded of the pulps. Its stable of writers included luminaries such as Harold Lamb, Max Brand, Sax Rohmer, Edgar Wallace, James B. Hendryx, and Sax Rohmer. As the magazine market weakened in the 1950s, Short Stories switched to a “men’s magazine,” and rebranded itself with the obvious Short Stories: A Men’s Magazine in 1957, and then in 1959, shortly before its demise that same year, as Short Stories for Men. Jim Kjelgaard was a regular contributor to Short Stories during, and after, World War 2. The magazine published 25 stories with Kjelgaard’s byline. The first, “Month of Madness,” appeared in the May 10, 1942 issue and the last, “Larrigan Joe’s Poaching Ring,” saw print in the June 1950 issue. Like Kjelgaard’s young adult fiction, much of his output for Short Stories was centered around boys, animals, and nature. The stories included here a marvelous sampling of Kjelgaard’s work for Short Stories. “The Wild Pack,” which is told from the perspective of a blue jay, is about two dogs vying for control of the pack. “Reputation” is an Old West gunfighter tale with a refreshing twist. “Cheena” is a clever post-WW2 tale about wartime collaboration and vengeance. “Billy Dancer’s Bull” is something of a tall-tale about a wanna-be rancher and love, and “Arbey Holden Rides Again,” which is similar to Kjelgaard’s brilliant Handle Hoe Charlie stories, is a fun take on poachers and game wardens.

The Vintage Lists edition of Dusky & Other Tales is paired with Jim Kjelgaard’s excellent 1953 novel, The Spell of the White Sturgeon set on the wild shoreline of Lake Michigan in the mid-1850s. Part adventure story and part historical tale, The Spell of the White Sturgeon, introduces an 18-year-old orphan named Ramsay. Ramsay is traveling to Three Points, Wisconsin, where he has been promised a job, but arrives to find the job gone and he is forced to labor on a small family farm. But Ramsay’s prospects brighten when he saves a Dutch fisherman from drowning. Click here to purchase the Kindle version or here to purchase the paperback edition of The Spell of the White Sturgeon / Dusky & Other Tales at Amazon.