A Neal Fargo Adventure Series

A kill-crazy soldier of fortune named Cleve Buckner was recruiting an army of murderers, gunmen and deserters from all over Central America. With foreign money behind him, Buckner’s job was to wreck the Panama Canal before it could be completed. Fargo’s mission was to stop Buckner and eliminate him and his army once and for all. It was a tall order ... and probably the toughest mission Fargo had ever undertaken. But for $20,000, he decided to take the risk and see if he really could do the seemingly impossible.

This is the second volume in John Benteen's outstanding series about soldier of fortune Neal Fargo. It opens in Hollywood in 1914, where Fargo is working temporarily as an actor, of all things, playing a villain in a silent Western movie directed by Thomas Ince. Ince is the only real-life character to make an appearance in this novel; the hero of the picture is fictional, as is a beautiful actress Fargo meets. Ince wants Fargo to continue making movies and claims that he can be a big star, but Fargo isn’t interested in make-believe. Having lived a life of adventure, he needs the real thing. So when the actress, Jane Deering, asks him to go to Alaska and find out what happened to her husband, who disappeared there several years earlier while prospecting for gold, Fargo agrees without hesitation. He’s less enthusiastic about the idea of Jane coming along with him to look for the missing man, but she convinces him. Naturally, things don’t go well, and Fargo and Jane wind up in all sorts of danger in the gold fields of the untamed Yukon country. There are vigilantes, a mysterious killer, blizzards, and assorted mushing around on dog sleds and snowshoes. As usual, Benteen spins his yarn in tough, hardboiled prose without a wasted word to be found. He’s one of the best pure action writers I’ve ever run across. ALASKA STEEL is a prime example of a short, gritty adventure novel, and like all of John Benteen's work it’s well worth reading.

Fargo lives with a gun in his fist. Guns and killing are all he knows. And Fargo likes what he knows. Want to start a revolution? Want to stop one? Send for Fargo. Want to blow a bridge, stage a prison break, rob a bank? Fargo’s your man. The Army taught Fargo how to kill with pistol, rifle, machine gun. He became an expert with knives, shotguns and women on his own time. Fargo hates the quiet life. He knows he’s going to get it sooner or later. He hopes it won’t be too much later because he wouldn’t know how to be old and comfortable. So while he lasts, Fargo plans to grab the world by the throat and take what he wants. If the world doesn’t like that, it can try to stop him ... if it can.

Fargo was after two things: a priceless cannon and a beautiful woman. But the only way to the Valley of the Skulls was through land so primitive that word of revolution would not have reached it. There was a reward out for him in Guatemala and there were the bandits in Yucatan, and they would have stalked him all the way, if they did not kill him for his guns and outfit first . . .

Soldier of fortune Neal Fargo knew Lasher was behind attempts to wreck the MacKenzie logging operation. Lasher wanted the lush timberland known as the Wolf’s Head Tract for himself, and smashing MacKenzie was the first step in taking it. Teddy Roosevelt, Fargo’s old Rough Riders boss, had an interest in the situation, and wanted Lasher stopped—permanently. But Lasher was as tough as they come, and harder to catch than a greased pig. Still, when Fargo took on a job he saw it through to its violent end ... or died in the trying.

Fargo, Neal Fargo - a true man of action. The Mexicans needed guns and Fargo needed money—so they made a deal. Getting the arms past the cavalry patrols along the border would take some doing, but Neal Fargo thought he could handle it. There might be a problem later with the Mexicans—you never knew which way the sons of senoras were likely to jump—but as always Fargo figured to take it one man, one bullet at a time. The kind of trouble he didn’t count on when he took the job turned out to be the worst trouble of all-the Apaches. Geronimo was dead, and the big wars were over, but deep in the mountains the last of the Mescaleros still prowled like rabid wolves.

Fargo went to Manila on the promise of a high-paying job with plenty of action. Chinese businessman Jonathan Ching wanted him to transport a small fortune to an associate in Luzon. At once Fargo realized that missions didn’t come much tougher. If the jungle didn’t kill him first, then the murderous Moro headhunters would. But then the job got even more complicated. Ching also wanted Fargo to deliver his beautiful daughter, Jade, to the man to whom she had been betrothed at birth. If the mission failed, Ching would lose face—an unthinkable fate for the Chinaman. So it fell to Fargo and a wild-fighting Irishman named O’Bannon to pull off the impossible mission ... or die the worst way possible in the trying!

Some folks swore that glory-seeking Pat Garrett never did gun down Billy the Kid in that darkened adobe house in New Mexico. Fargo never thought about it one way or the other, until a man with foxy eyes backed his argument with $25,000. For that kind of money, Fargo hoped Billy was alive and well, because his job was to kill the Kid all over again ... and to make sure that, this time, he stayed dead.

The East Texas oilfields came in with a boom. Rivers of money gushed from the ground. Along with the money came the speculators, the wheelers and dealers – and the killers. Fargo followed the money and excitement clear across Texas. Trouble is Fargo’s business – other people’s trouble. They know him from Alaska to Panama and the smart ones get out of his way. The ones who aren’t so smart get a gun barrel laid across the nose, or if Fargo’s short on time, they get killed. Fargo kills, but he doesn’t enjoy it. It’s a job. And he’s good at it.

Fargo went to Argentina for two reasons. The first was money – $20,000 – because he never sells his gun without getting paid in advance. Professional interest was the second reason; in his time, Fargo had picked up the tricks of his deadly trade by fighting Apaches, comancheros, Philippine insurectos, among others, but he had never tangled with a bunch of bandit gauchos, the meanest breed of men in South America. This particular gang was threatening the richest breeder of prize black bulls south of the Rio Grande. Fargo’s job was to put them to bed with a shovel. A lot of good men had died trying, but Fargo was better than good. He was the best corpse-maker in the business.

Fargo was making good money running guns across the border to Pancho Villa. He didn’t give a damn about the Mexican Revolution, as long as the money was good. Then a dangerous Mexican-Irishman named Carlos O’Brien and a good-looking El Paso saloon girl came along and Fargo found himself facing a firing squad armed with his own guns. After that he had to fight his own bloody war in the middle of the revolution. Even for Fargo, it was the toughest chore he ever had to face.

The Canfield clan, thirty strong, had left their North Carolina mountains and were raising hell in Texas. One of them had shot a Texas Ranger, and the Rangers had to bring in the killer. The last thing they wanted, though, was to start a feud where the Canfields and the lawmen had to kill each other off. Neal Fargo’s arrest for gunrunning gave them a way out. Fargo could go free if he promised to walk into the Canfields’ lair and bring out the killer. That way, the Canfields would have no quarrel with the Rangers. And Fargo was tough enough to hold his own against the whole clan!

He was a soldier of fortune, for sale to the highest bidder—he was Fargo. Broke and on foot after his horse breaks a leg and has to be put down, Fargo jumps aboard a train in Idaho. He's almost instantly attacked by a hulk working for the rail line. The Continental-Western allows no riders, even paying ones. Junction Flats is the own buffaloed by the C-W and Hawk Morrison. After Fargo has to take out the local railroad detective, Morrison attempts to hire him. Though broke, Fargo has already taken a dislike to the man and his methods. If this man wants to hire him, then someone else is on another side. He gets caught up in the C-W's attempts to take over a small rail line running silver ore twice a day from a mine. They get a cut of the profits to the tune of $3,000 a day. Music to Fargo's ears.

Chloride Charlie was an old desert rat from Death Valley who was either one of the richest men in the world or else the greatest conman anyone had ever heard of. When Fargo signed up to work for Charlie, he found himself fighting every kind of varmint there was—from amateur bushwhackers to a professional army of hired killers. The only thing standing between them and the secret of Charlie’s fortune was ... Fargo.

Fargo staked an old prospector to five thousand and figured to make a million in gold on the deal. It made him killing mad when a bunch of gun slicks killed the old man, stole the gold and took his daughter along to while away the weary hours on the trail. Fargo liked the girl, but the gold was first in his mind when he saddled up and took after them. Up ahead was some of the worst country in the world, the Mojave Desert, but Fargo figured it was worth the effort. For a million in gold and a pretty girl to help him spend it, he’d ride clear to hell and back.

The Colorado was the wildest, toughest river in America. Just staying alive on the rapids took a lot of nerve and a lot of luck. And then there were the men who lined it. Teddy Roosevelt called them wolves—old-time gunfighters and desperados who hid out in the surrounding wilderness. They were desperate sonsofbitches who hated the modern world that had exiled them, and they were constantly ready to strike out and kill any passing stranger for his boat, or his gun. Fargo’s job was to go down the Colorado with Roosevelt’s government explorers. And if anyone could keep them afloat and keep them alive, it was him.

Cattle rustlers were hitting the spreads of the biggest Texas ranchers. They were striking the most vulnerable ranches, those along the Rio, and running the cattle into Mexico. Even the cavalry couldn’t stop them. The Texas and Southwestern Stock Raiser’s Association hired Fargo to put a stop to the rustling once and for all. They offered him $30,000 to go into Mexico and bust off the ring of thieves. Fargo took on the job for the money but something else entered the picture—the beautiful widow whose husband had been killed.

Fargo was running Springfield rifles across the border to Pancho Villa. That meant he had to dodge the U.S. Army, the Texas Rangers, and the Mexican regulars. But for the kind of money he was getting, it was worth it. Then he got mixed up with two American sisters—Rose and Lola. Rose was a nice girl, Lola was wild and mean—and you can guess which one Fargo liked better. Especially when she was holding half a million dollars in stolen money!