Tragg’s Choice by Clifton Adams

 

One of the mules was down in the traces.

“Busted foreleg,” the driver announced sourly.

“Well, what you're goin’ to do about it?” Morrassey demanded, as if the driver had broken the axle on purpose just to plague him.

The driver, whose name was Hugh Garden, made an impressive show of pretending that Morrassey did not exist. Garden and Ernie Nash methodically began unhitching the three sound mules. When they were free, the cowhand led them away a good distance from the wagon. The driver stood for a moment, looking down at the injured mule, and the mule, with great hurt eyes, looked back at him. “I ain’t proud to do this, old son,” Garden said quietly.  He drew an ancient converted .44, cocked it, and gently placed the muzzle behind one tufted ear.

This fine novel won the Spur Award for Best Novel in 1969. It is yet another in Mr. Adams’ fine streak of novels that combine a bit of noir brevity with laconic Western formulary elements and turns them all into fine entertainment.

All the Adams novels I have read thus far feel as if you will be traipsing into familiar territory and yet he always finds a way to slightly subvert expectations and deliver both tried and true Western entertainment while bumping against the edges of the mere formulary and providing a truly mature experience.

He delivers terse hard-edged poetry throughout, as the next extract demonstrates.

Morrassey knew that he was not a “gunman.” Up to now his killing had been mostly luck. So the two cowhands rode on, unaware that death had reached out to take them, and then had shrugged and passed them by.

An excellent read from a solid craftsman.