They crossed the concrete platform. They
slowed, stopped, put down their bags. Where in the name of God was Dodge City?
Where was dear old Front Street with its flies and chuck-holes and dead cats
and plank sidewalks, and hitching rails cribbed half through by the teeth of
impoverished ponies, and jingling spurs and popping pistols and drunks laid out
to dry? Where the loafers and landsharks lounging in the shade of the
overhangs? Where the whiskey barrels filled with water in case of fire? Where
the town well with its sign “The Carrying of Firearms Strictly Prohibited”?
The author of the tremendous The Shootist gives
us another tale of aging and fading lawmen, but here we get the fiction in the guise
of faction.
Swarthout re-imagines one last trip on the owl hoot
trail with geriatric versions of Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp.
We have some fine writing here and Mr. Swarthout knows
his history, he knows these men but...it has none of the elegiac tone of The
Shootist, rather it goes for a sort of tongue-in-cheek humor that is of a particular
kind.
Case in point…
Halfway up, Bat first, Wyatt a close
second for support, the one, the only Bat Masterson rips off a tremendous fart
of fear in his friend’s face. “Damn you,” growls Wyatt. “I can’t help it! I’m
scared!” “Keep going.”
The tale is filled with such low-bar high-jinks, that
may have perhaps played well in a film adaptation with aging charmers such as
James Garner or Paul Newman in the leads, but on the page, the charm is
lacking, it simply is a bit jarring to see these Legends handled and treated as
if they were grammar school delinquents.
It is well written but…I am judging Mr. Swarthout
against his own best work, and that bar is mighty high.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.