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Of American-English origin, the phrase hell, west and crooked means: all over the place, in disarray.

The British-born Australian author Tom Cole (1906-1995) used this phrase as the title of his memoirs: Hell West and Crooked (Sydney (N.S.W.): Collins, 1988). The following is from a review of this book, by Robert Wilson, published in The Canberra Times (Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia) of Saturday 10^th December 1988 [page B4, columns 1 & 2]:

I must admit that I had never heard the expression “Hell West and Crooked” until I read this book by Tom Cole. Checking in that marvellous compendium, The Australian National Dictionary, I discovered that it was apparently first recorded by Ernestine Hill in her classic The Territory, in 1951.
It refers to a mob of cattle all over the place, in disarray *. Tom Cole came to Australia from England in 1923 and worked as a drover, station hand, cook, buffalo and crocodile hunter in the Northern Territory before World War II. His memories and yarns preserve an era that we will never see in Australia again.

* The Australian National Dictionary quotes, s.v. hell, the following from Groote Eylandt Aborigines and Mining: A Study in Cross-cultural Relationships ([Chatswood, N.S.W.]: Rigby, 1988), by the Australian anthropologist Keith Cole (1919-2012):

‘Hell west and crooked’. A cattleman’s expression meaning all over the place.

These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the phrase hell, west and crooked that I have found:

1-: From the Topeka Weekly Leader (Topeka, Kansas, USA) of Thursday 29^th August 1867 [page 3, column 2]:

THE WALLAPUS.

The lovers of Natural History have been gratified to an unusual extent this week, by a sight of the famous Egyptian Wallapus. […]
[…] Our Wallapus was herbiferous [sic], and, as our citizens denied the proposition, (as applied to Topekaites), that all flesh was grass, could not, or at least did not, eat any one. The savans [sic] of the country hazarded many scientific opinions as to its origin. Some were inclined to believe that the Wallapus was got up by nature in a sudden freak as a burlesque on the magnificent giraffe. The matter was finally settled by the dictum of a long-haired intoxicated savan [sic] from Arkansas. “Why, blast my picter, its nothing but a blamed Mexican cow with her hair scraped off and her horns knocked hell-west and crooked.” The savans who had first expressed themselves, smiled, bowed their heads in token of defeat, and passed on.

2-: From the following proclamation, published in the Selma Times and Messenger (Selma, Alabama, USA) of Friday 10^th July 1868 [page 1, column 3]—reprinted from the Union Springs Times (Union Springs, Alabama, USA):

Grand Cabin of the Chief Congo, Sixth Month, 20^th Day, Dark Moon.
Unto all subjects Congos, by the grace of the Prince of Evil elect to the Deputy Chamber of Deviltry, Grand Order of Scalawags—Hog and Hominy, Greeting:
Brethren—[…] I, WILLIAM H. SMITH, traitor, patricide, knave, Chief Congo elect of said State, and Big Boss of the D. C. O. D., G. O. S., by authority conceived of the Devil, born of Stevens, and unto me given by the Grand High Chamber of Deviltry, do order all and sundry of said elect to the D. C. O. D., G. O. S., to meet in new Hayti (formerly Montgomery,) at the hour of 12 M., Monday, 13^th day of 7^th Month, then and there to devise means to run the heretofore State of Alabama hell-west-and-crooked, for our especial profit and delectation. In the name of Africa and ignorance—Amen.

3-: From Andrew Johnson for President, published in the Public Ledger (Memphis, Tennessee, USA) of Friday 23^rd July 1869 [page 1, column 4]—the following was spoken by one of “the believers in a future state for A. J.” (i.e., for Andrew Johnson):

“Free trade will carry the West like wildfire, and by inserting whisky in our platform we are certain to be all right in Arkansas and Kentucky. Everybody shall have plenty of whisky, and we will have us a Supreme Court that will knock the anti-liquor laws of Maine and Massachusetts hell, west and crooked.”

4-: From How the Bar Gobbled up John Potter’s Chickens. John Robertson’s Ride on the Bear’s Back. A Yazoo Story, published in The New-Orleans Times (New Orleans, Louisiana, USA) of Sunday 17^th July 1870 [page 5, column 3]—“he” refers to the bear:

Thar he stood, with his back right up agin a big white oak, the daugs they a snappin’ at him, an’ pinchin’ his hide whenever they got a chance, an’ the bar a rarin’ back on his hind-quarters, a slappin’ at the daugs right an’ left, an’ occasionally knockin’ some of um hell-west an’ crooked!

5-: From How John Potter “Larruped” Jo Cole. A Yazoo Story. By William Hall, published in The New-Orleans Weekly Times (New Orleans, Louisiana, USA) of Saturday 7^th June 1873 [page 10, column 4]:

I jumped on my ole hoss an’ put for home, an’ when I got thar, a nigger I had didn’t cum quick enuff to take my hoss, an’ I’ll be durned if I didn’t hit him a lick that sent him hell-west an’ crooked.