Tall in the West by Vechel Howard

 

“The buffalo hunters were gaunt and bearded. Their blood-stained clothes were ragged and their aspect as they sat on their shaggy horses gazing down at the figure in the canyon was almost as macabre and predatory as the scavengers they had frightened away.”

This 1958 Fawcett Gold Medal Western written by playwright Howard, who also wrote under the name Howard Rigsby, is a curious affair.

We have a story reminiscent of the 1965 TV series A Man Called Shenandoah starring Robert Horton, in which our amnesiac protagonist wanders the West in search of himself.

The first half of the novel is rather successful as we deal with our character’s attempts in real time. In the second half the author shifts to an almost journalistic style, recording the far travels and experiences of our searcher after the fact. It reads almost dialogue free and seems more an outline for an epic novel.

The dialogue-free nature is a curious choice as Mr. Howard/Rigsby was also a playwright, a genre almost dictated by dialogue demands.

I enjoyed the first half of the novel very much and would love to have seen the second half developed in more detail as follows the dictates of the author’s own plotting.

One is left with the feeling that this was an epic in the making and the author simply ran up against deadline.

Mixed feelings, but what is good, is quite good.