“The Scalper” by Richard Prosch

 

Fat Charlie McSnatt could feel the fish slipping off the hook. The old boy had nipped the bait, but the hook wasn’t solid, and now things were going south.

The 2016 Spur Award Winner in the Best Short Fiction category.

This is one of those little gems that illustrates why I love this genre.

A crime novel, no matter how well written, must at all points be slave to the foregone conclusion that a crime must be solved.

Be that resolution clever or clumsy, there is no surprise that the plot must follow those ruts.

Whereas the Western well, the uninitiated assume there must be a shoot-out [and often there is-and I can love myself a fine shoot-out] but…

Just as often, there is not a square-jawed hero in sight. No shooting iron to be fanned.

The Western, beyond place has no boundaries.

Here we have a tale that belies the assumed meaning of the title and bait and switches throughout the journey all the way to the O. Henry twist in the tale.

This gregarious amble calls to mind less the aforementioned O. Henry and more the easy affability of Bret Harte mixed with the superb third episode of the 1960 television series, The Westerner, which has Brian Keith and John Dehner barter over the sale of a dog named Brown.

That gorgeous episode was directed by the legendary Sam Peckinpah.

I’d love to have seen his eye and hand tackling this slice of fun.