Stagecoach by Ernest Haycox

 

“World’s full of small people who ain’t bound anywhere. They’re tied to one spot, they eat and work and die; and that’s the end of it. It don’t happen often that the game changes and a whole chunk of the world opens up and there’s a fresh chance for the small, if they’ve got the nerve to take it. That’s why we’re here—to get land I’d never had in Iowa. Back there you’d have been a poor man’s son and nothing to start with. Now when I die you’ll have a thousand acres, and if you’re smart you’ll leave more than that to your sons. That’s why people will come, but some of them will be the same kind of fools here they were there, thinking free land means they’re free to sit still and do no work, and they’ll waste their days and die as poor as they started.” –Violent Interlude

Here we have nine stories, that were formerly packaged in a volume titled By Rope and Lead.

I have made no secret of my esteem for Mr. Haycox and found these stories to rank in the B to A+ level with only two C’s in the bunch. And we must keep in mind that these “C’s” are comparing a gifted author against himself, not the pack of many that don’t always measure up to his uniform rock-solid excellence.

Haycox, as per usual, limns landscape with an Old Master’s eye, he esteems “can do” like no one, and he exudes a inner moral fiber that is always bracing to spend time with.

His four page “A Question of Blood” deserves reading and re-reading to marvel at the punch in such a slim page count.

Superlative!