White Squaw 5: Buckskin Bombshell (1984, E.J. Hunter)

 

Some women are destined to break men's hearts, others are destined to break men's balls. Rebecca Caldwell gets to do her fair share of both in E.J. Hunter's notoriously revolting western series. Swearing vengeance on the men who done her wrong, the part Sioux, part White heroine isn't one to mince words "I want to kill each and everyone of them myself, I want to cut off their balls and shove them down their throats. I want to set fires on their bellies and listen to their screams as they die".

As this is an early entry in the White Squaw series, Rebecca's main quarry is still her Uncle Ezekial, the man who sold Rebecca into slavery, and Bitter Creek Jake Tulley, the leader of the Outlaw gang that her Uncle is a member of. Rebecca rides alongside Brett Baylor aka Lone Wolf, a white man who spent ten years living as a Crow brave and has now turned his back on the white man's culture. Lone Wolf's real ethnicity however means that he can blend back into white society if he and Rebecca's mission dictates it.

Buckskin Bombshell follows the same pattern as pretty much all the White Squaw series. Rebecca pursues some badmen who leave a trail of rape and murder in their wake...gets short shrift from the law on account of her being a woman and having Indian blood in her...wastes a few secondary goons only for the main villains to usually give her the slip at the end of the book...necessitating further White Squaw books in which the exact same thing happens again. There's also lots of sex along the trail, with Rebecca going through several sexual partners per book. The only exception being Lone Wolf, who tortures himself by taking a strict vow of celibacy. Buckskin Bombshell is notably big on fellatio, with Rebecca portrayed as the Old West's equivalent of Linda Lovelace. Her advanced knowledge of oral sex techniques having been drilled into her by her abusive former husband. In another feather to her Indian headband, we discover that Rebecca is able to hum a tune while going down on a guy "with lips and flying tongue, she worked on his fat cock while her body vibrated with suppressed desire and she hummed a pleasing Sioux love song".

The simplistic plot of Buckskin Bombshell sees Rebecca tracking down her Uncle Ezekial to an outlaw town where she hopes to finally geld him. Elsewhere young prostitutes, who've been kidnapped by Tulley, are forced to work in Ezekial's brothel 'The Bloody Gash' named for obvious reasons. In order to infiltrate a town full of raping wrong ‘uns, Rebecca has to perversely pass herself off as a sex crazed young boy "I've been wettin' my pecker since I was eleven". While US Marshal Rex Taylor, Rebecca's main love interest in this book, adopts the identity of Slim Garfield, an outlaw he'd personally slain. Only for Rex to be asked to literally prove his manhood to others in order to pass as the big dicked outlaw "Slim's supposed to have a cock that hangs down to his knees. You reckon you could show that much".

The White Squaw series is strong meat both in terms of sex, which is written on the level of hardcore pornography, and violence, which is on par with a splatterpunk novel. Heads are sliced into with tomahawks, balls cut off, entrails yanked out of people and limbs blown off. In short, you'd have to be as think skinned as a cigar store Indian not to be shocked by these books. One booktuber had planned to cover the entire 24 book long White Squaw series over yonder on YouTube, complete with Joe Bob Briggs style Drive-In Totals of each book's carnage count. Only to throw in the towel after a few entries. The unsettling aspect to the series- namely E.J. Hunter's fixation on child abuse- means these books don't really lend themselves well to Joe Bob type raucous, good time curation...there is too much 'Nonce-Fu' going on in these books for that.

At its mildest, the book features a young boy- who Hunter seems keen to describe as 'naked to the waist and barefoot' being violently slapped into unconsciousness and left in a dung heap. At its worst, the book establishes the villainy of Tulley's men by having them gang rape and butcher a young Native American girl called Shee-nah-ah. The first of three rapes in the book, all of which are described in an increasingly gloating fashion. While one of Jake's men dies at Rebecca's hands while regretting that he didn't take the opportunity to rape her while she was underage.

It is difficult to be around a White Squaw book for long without finding yourself asking questions like 'just what was wrong with this author', 'did he spend his spare time sniffing the seats of young girls' bicycles' and 'just who was the man behind the E.J. Hunter pen name'. Several online sources have pointed to Hunter being a pseudonym for Mark Kelly Roberts, who wrote numerous entries in 'The Penetrator' series of Men's Adventure books. Such is the morally suspect nature of the White Squaw series, you wouldn't want to point the finger at an innocent party, but all the evidence does appear to suggest that Roberts and E.J. Hunter were one in the same. The Penetrator series was a joint effort, with Roberts writing the odd numbered entries and another author, Chet Cunningham, writing the even numbered ones. Although that entire series is credited to the pen name 'Lionel Derrick', the odd entries contain a 'special acknowledgement to Mark K. Roberts' and the even ones 'special acknowledgement to Chet Cunningham'. Buckskin Bombshell continues this trend with its 'special acknowledgement to Mark K. Roberts' credit, indicating this was the publisher's coded way of crediting the real author. While I've yet to read any of The Penetrator books, they do appear to share some themes with the White Squaw series, namely a part White, part Indian protagonist and a knowledge of Native American culture that appears to hold up under close scrutiny for once. Going by the reviews of The Penetrator books on the glorious trash blog, the author's other specialist subject raises its ugly head in that series a couple of times too. The Penetrator #41: Hell's Hostages features an 'explicit flashback detailing Katrina's rape...at age 11' while in The Penetrator #43: Rampage in Rio 'a fat Nazi molests one of the captured children'. All of which sounds like E.J. Hunter up to his usual tricks.

Still to give credit where it is due, Hunter was a writer of some talent. The White Squaw books feel on the money in terms of period authenticity, are fast paced and ultra violent... I've yet to encounter a dud in the entire series. The books could have easily withstood losing their deviant aspect, yet when it comes to inappropriately writing about children, Hunter unfortunately seems like a man possessed.

Roberts' entries in The Penetrator series are said to be right leaning creations and there is spillover evidence of that in the White Squaw series. Rex Taylor has no time for chicken livered types who want to do away with the death penalty, spitting out contempt for "all the spineless, the weak willed and the cowardly, who would rather try to work out some kind of accommodation with the predators in our world". Tough, manly talk that has Rebecca puckering her lips and getting ready to hum another pleasing Sioux love song. As a lawman though, Rex insists on playing by the book, putting him at odds with Rebecca's growing need to take an eye for an eye. Rex's stance sending Rebecca off on some soul searching about whether her lust for revenge could be robbing her of her humanity. A reoccurring theme throughout the series. The politics of the White Squaw series are a little more complex than they first appear. Hunter doesn't quite fit the mold of your typical conservative author, given the series' sexual excess and highlighting of the injustices faced by Native Americans. There's also a surprisingly passionate outburst of feminism here, caused by Rex refusing to deputize Rebecca on account her being a woman. A decision that leaves Rebecca fuming "How dare he! A new form of passion flared her nostrils and set her heart to racing. Only a woman! Only an object to possess and to place aside on a shelf like some delicate keepsake of precious china! Damn him!".
Less anyone think that Hunter was some chicken livered liberal though, the White Squaw series does seek to distance itself from the inherent anti-whiteness of the revisionist western genre. Not all the whites who Rebecca encounters turn out to be bigots or hostile towards her. At one point in Buckskin Bombshell, Rebecca jumps to the defense of white men telling Shee-nah-ah that it is unfair to judge all of them on the actions of Tulley and his men "not all whites are like this. Kiyuksa...they break their own customs". Although as Rebecca tells Shee-nah-ah this while Shee-nah-ah dies in a pool of her own blood and the men's semen, Rebecca's words were probably cold comfort there.

Buckskin Bombshell also teaches us that the term 'White Squaw' is actually highly offensive to Rebecca. Her preferred term, and the one she's referred to by Native American characters being 'White Robe Girl'. Of course this didn't stop Hunter from going with the offending, but much more catchier White Squaw as the series title, after all sensitivity was never high on his list of priorities.

The Neophyte (1986, Guy N. Smith)

 

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and you shouldn't get on the wrong side of a Charolais bull either, are but two of the life lessons to be learnt from this 1986 Guy N. Smith offering.

The Neophyte's main character, Joby Tarrat, is a misunderstood teen whose deceased parents' legacy of witchcraft, murder and adultery have made him something of a social outcast in his rural community. Joby's reputation as a pariah only increases when he accidentally decapitates a small child with a billhook. His only friend, schoolboy Ally Goode is convinced that Sally Ann Morris, the girl Joby loves from afar, possesses supernatural powers and is a bad influence on Joby. However, visitations from Sally Ann in Joby's horny dreams, accuse Ally of being the source of all of Joby's troubles. What's a boy to do?

While The Neophyte contains its fair share of supernatural carnage, the really disturbing aspects to this book tend to stem from Smith's portrayal of psychologically damaged young characters. Childhood abuse and a sense of alienation have left Joby Tarrat a paranoid head case who is convinced every person he meets, and a few farmyard animals, are all out to get him and harbor barely suppressed ill will towards him. Fortunately amidst all the teenage angst there is also plentiful evidence of Smith's jokey side in The Neophyte as well. Smith might play the horror elements in this book straight, but there are many moments when you can sense him mischievously sniggering away at what he was writing. Thinking especially here of the scene where the forces of darkness are used to make a dog urinate against a branch of Woolworths, the insights into the thoughts of a randy bull "let's get down to those cows", and a reference to the novelty hit 'The Birdie Song'.

For a man who was happily married to the same woman for decades until his death, Smith sure can write like a multiple times divorced cynic at times. The initial relationship in the book, between Joby's parents is riddled with infidelity, loathing and occult curses. While the bad relationship blues then get handed on down to Sally Ann's parents, her mother being an unfulfilled woman whose dullard husband has driven her into the arms of another man. Smith, the product of a controlling father and an elitist mother, had both father and mother issues that spill out into his books. However in The Neophyte, Smith is mainly concerned with taking bad mothers to task. Sally Ann's mother is a total snob who is aghast at her daughter mixing with the lower classes and Sally Ann's budding relationship with Joby, who until he accidentally hacked a kid's head off, was working as a labourer on the farm owned by Sally Ann's father. Joby's own mother, who held black masses and locked young Joby in a stair cupboard for hours on end, is hardly mother of the year material either.

There clearly is an autobiographical element to the majority of GNS' work. The Neophyte, like so many of his books, being set in a rural farming community, a world Smith knew well. I suspect that GNS may have also looked to his nearest and dearest for character inspiration too. The books Smith wrote when his own children were very young, like The Undead and Manitou Doll, imitate life by themselves featuring characters with young children. The autobiographical elements in those two books being particularly felt due to both concerning the parents of a young deaf child, one of Smith's daughters having been born deaf. Manitou Doll clearly arising from Smith's need to turn his deaf daughter into a character in one of his books, and have her kill someone with a giant axe! The GNS books that came along a few years later, like this one, tend to transfer the focus over to rebellious teenagers, with Smith likely drawing on his then status as the father of three teenagers. Sally Ann is going through a 'trendy, left-wing' phase, while Joby has picked up a guitar and has turned to music to ease his troubles. Suggesting that Joby might have been partly based on Smith's son Gavin, who has subsequently carved out a career for himself in the music industry and is currently part of a band called Bamboo Guerillas, named after one of his dad's most notorious books.

As you might expect from a GNS book, an air of horny, sexual frustration abounds in The Neophyte. Joby wanks off to the idea of a sexual encounter with Sally Ann only to then be consumed by masturbatory guilt, drilled into him by his deceased mother. Mum's influence having left Joby with a need to beat himself up over beating himself off. More unexpected is Ally's resentment of Joby's interest in Sally Ann, and Joby's interest in girls in general, leaving you in no doubt that Ally's feelings for Joby go beyond mere friendship. Not the kind of unrequited love that you'd expect a red blooded, straight writer like GNS to have even contemplated, let alone be writing about in the 1980s. If I didn't know better, I'd think that Smith was being intentionally subversive here. All of the relationships between men and women in The Neophyte lead to misery, bitterness and coercive behavior, while the forces of evil conspire to keep Joby and the closet gay schoolboy Ally apart.

The book's criticism of the upper classes' pursuit of fox hunting is another aspect of The Neophyte that took me aback, given that Smith was a well known advocate of hunting and very vocally went after animal rights activists in his books, most notably 'Crabs: The Human Sacrifice'. My guess is that while Smith approved of the killing of animals for food or for reasons of pest control, he was possibly less on board when it came to trophy hunting or hunting solely motivated by bloodlust. In 1978's Killer Crabs, Smith appeared to take great pleasure in exposing a rich man, with delusions of being a great white hunter, as being both inept as a huntsman and inadequate as a cocksman. The criticism of the hunting brigade in The Neophyte being that they are a bunch of Hooray Henries who arrogantly trample over private property, damage the livelihoods of honest, hardworking farmers and are an ineffective way of dealing with the problem at hand. As gamekeeper  Joe Rowell complains "they're not interested in killing foxes, all they want to do is get dressed up in their fancy clothes and go for a ride". Not that Smith doesn't have equally strong words for those on the other side of this issue. A scene set at an unethical circus, allows Smith the chance to attack members of the public who get 'irate about blood sports and vivisection, formed animal rights groups and raided silver fox farms, but they were quite happy to be entertained by wild animals kept in cruelty'. The impression you're left with is that Smith had little time for either the weekend huntsman or the weekend revolutionary.

The sympathetic portrayal of Joby, who spends a good deal of the book unemployed and living off state benefits, also goes against expectations from Smith, whose work was prone to blood boiling anger over those without work and relying on handouts. Smith even throws Joby some free benefits of the sexual variety in the form of Harriet Blake, who is every bit as vilified in the village as Joby, albeit for different reasons. A drunken, exhibitionist episode in the village having resulted in Harriet flashing her crotchless panties to all and sundry. Smith was always critical of characters who failed to live up to physical perfection, and Harriet becomes yet another Smith character to be slapped on the wrist by him for carrying around some extra weight. 'The fat on her bottom crinkled, there was a permanent elasticated mark where her pants attempted to hold her spare tyre in'. Still when you are an unemployed, serial masturbator who lives in a dilapidated farmhouse, I guess you have to take whatever is on offer, even if the spare tyre is included. Joby's awkward journey to manhood also sees him travelling to the rough area of a neighbouring town to seek out the services of a cheap prostitute. Infuriating Sally Ann whose supernatural abilities allow her to monitor his behaviour. A case of- to misquote Kenny Rogers- Joby don't take your love to town.

While the first half of The Neophyte (entitled Book One: The Spawn) concludes with the closest GNS ever came to writing a teenage coming of age drama, its second half (Book Two: The Evil) takes its foot off the brakes and veers into the fast lane when it comes to horror. As with many of his books from this period, like 'The Walking Dead', the narrative tends to get reduced to a connecting link between a series of outrageous set pieces whose offensiveness rarely fails to impress. Some if the depravity and madness Smith manages to crowbar into the second half of the book includes a raunchy encounter with a satanic cult, incest, auto erotic asphyxiation and death by rampaging elephant...but not necessarily in that order. In short, punters sure got their money's worth out of GNS with The Neophyte.

Such is the high sleaze and gore content of The Neophyte that it had the honour of being published in France in 1989 by the splatter loving publisher Fleuve Noir, as part of their 'Gore' series of extreme horror novels. The cover of the French edition of The Neophyte practically begs for a lawsuit from Sam Raimi, to this day I'm sure that actor Bruce Campbell is blissfully unaware that he's appeared on the cover of a Guy N. Smith book. The Fleuve Noir people always being especially bold when it came to ripping off Evil Dead 1 and 2 imagery.

Having read a large chunk of Smith's bibliography by now, I was beginning to get concerned that I'd consumed the best he had to offer, and that the remaining books would be a case of diminishing returns. However this and a recent read of 'The Knighton Vampires' have left me reassured that there are still a few gems to be found among the lesser known Smith books. Don't get me wrong, you'll encounter a few duds down the GNS rabbit hole, but The Neophyte has proven to be one of those much needed titles that reminds you of all the joy that can come from reading a Guy N. Smith book.