Savage 2: The Damned

**“Hold up, runts, or you’re dead men!”** They leapt apart like a well-drilled cavalry platoon.Against his better judgment, Savage held his fire. Then the five started shooting in his direction, and he instantly blanked his mind to the fact that they were little men. A child with a gun could kill you as dead as Wild Bill Hickok, and these were no children.The heavy, black Colt in his hand belched fire and lead across the dusty room and a small, brown-garbed figure buckled into a ball and slammed headlong into the piano.Within seconds the Bonanza Saloon was rocking to the sounds of a full-blown shoot-out.The dwarfs may have been skilled fighters, but despite their numbers were no match for Clint Savage. He was a true man of the gun. It was his one real friend.E. Jefferson Clay was just one of many pseudonyms used by New South Wales-born Paul Wheelahan (1930-2018). Starting off as a comic-book writer/illustrator, Paul created The Panther and The Raven before moving on to a long and distinguished career as a western writer. Under the names Emerson Dodge, Brett McKinley, E. Jefferson Clay, Ben Jefferson and others, he penned more than 800 westerns and could, at his height, turn out a full-length western in just four days. The son of a mounted policeman, Paul initially worked as a powder monkey on the Oaky River Dam project. By 1955, however, he was drawing Davy Crockett—Frontier Scout. In 1963 he began his long association with Australian publisher Cleveland Pty. Co. Ltd. As prolific as he was as a western writer, however, he also managed to write for TV, creating shows like Runaways and contributing scripts to perennial favorites like A Country Practice. At the time of his death, in December 2018, he was writing his autobiography, Never Ride Back … which was also the title of his very first western.