Last Scout by Wade Everett

 

“Another thing too,” he said. “A man picks his work because he is what he is. When a man ain't afraid to try himself, to find out what he is, he'll take a job with some risk. When he ain't man enough to do that, he clerks in a store, or counts plews another man fetches to him. It's always been that way, boy. Back in the days of the fur trade, them rich titled fellows would come out and run the tradin’ posts. They'd faunch about in knee britches and sniff snuff and keep books. Then go back to New Orleans and tell what a tough time it was, how cold it got in the winter.” He laughed. “They thought they was livin’, boy, but the livin’ was a far piece out, to a place they'd never see, on account of it took a man to just get there. You see them far places, boy. You go when the itch gets you, and don't come back till you've seen it all.”

We stopped in front of the express office. “You're an old pirate, grandpa.” He took it the way I meant it, as a compliment, and he gave me a near toothless grin, “Yeah, I've bayed it the moon and made a couple of trips to hell just to see what it was like down there. But I got no regrets. Life’s a strong taste, boy, and only a few are man enough not to choke on the sweetness of it, or wretch on the gall.”

My second Everrett [Will Cook] novel after the excellent First Command [also reviewed here.]

In comparison it is the lesser of the two.

That fault may be mine; it is from the POV of a boy which gives the novel the feel of a “young adult” effort.

That does not prevent Everett/Cook from providing enjoyment and…

A good amount of Wisdom with a capital W.

As in this example…

“It don't bother man to die when he knows he's doing somethin’. It only bothers him he knows all that's left is the dyin’.”

Or this one…

“A man is what he is from moment to moment. What he's been doesn't count, and what he's going to be ain't worth a hill of beans. Just this moment, that's what we are, no more.”

It may be “lesser” Everett/Cook but I still enjoyed the hell out of it.

Stories of Christmas and the Bowie Knife by J. Frank Dobie

 

“The gift without the giver is bare.” Gifts can be manufactured, some beautiful, many useful, but giving-out feelings can’t be—though they can be cultivated. The love and cheer associated with Christmas will always be the best thing about it. How often just a good word that conveys the word-giver’s generosity of spirit enriches people! I remember the “Merry Christmas, sir!” of a gray-haired woman scrubbing stone steps at a college in Cambridge, England, during the war; and recollection of her sturdy, cheerful, kind nature brightens my world. I can hear my mother’s “Christmas Gift” or “Merry Christmas” as I write these words. Whoever heard her greeting received a gift, for she meant every syllable of it, felt every tone in it. Sunrise, starlight, silence of dusk are never trite. Generous feelings and cheering words are never trite. Merry Christmas!

A brief volume from Western historian Frank Dobie.

I adore Mr. Dobie’s work [some of which is reviewed on this blog] and t’is the season for Christmas tales so…

The first half, our Yuletide section is more a terse remembrance than a narrative—sweet but not essential.

As for the second half of the book regarding the legendary Jim Bowie and his fabled knife…

It is good folklore but has little to do with actual history.

Dobie presents it as such so there is no quibble with him “making claims.”

It is a brief twofer volume—again not essential but I am not sorry at all I spent a little time with it.

Merry Christmas!

The Sun Dance Murders by Peter McCurtin

 

I drove through places you never heard of Flora Vista, Kirkland, Shiprock. There was no air conditioning in the car, and it was at least as hot as hell. At Durgin Springs I stopped to have a look at the wrecked post office. I talked to two of the survivors, both local whites, but there wasn't much they could tell me.

A Neo-Western from 1970. Seems to be a mix of Mickey Spillane transported to Elmore Leonard’s Southwest Mr. Majestyk territory, add some Billy Jack American Indian Movement politics, fake “red man” mysticism and you have a potent mix of some very un-PC seventies era sex, violence, casual racism and beaucoup misogyny.

I can get behind such vibes often—I find S. Craig Zahler’s excesses works of art.

Here, though,…here, while written with brisk craft, the non-stop “I’m a lady-killin’ bad-ass” narrative becomes laborious.

In a short dose, perhaps, but we are expected to follow these adventures for 156 long pages.

Our hero is so damn Manly there is never a doubt that all of the feminine species will throw themselves at him and all males of the species will be intimidated and/or laid low in bursts of violence.

I might have enjoyed this one far more when I was much younger and read the first few Mack Bolans with avid attention.

I am no longer that younger me.

If everything here that turned me off to the book sounds like your cuppa, well, giver ‘er a go.

Not badly written, just too much…way too much.