Apache Ambush by Will Cook

 

Lovington was in the barn, still alive, hanging by his wrists from one of the rafters. The Apaches had sliced through the calf muscles and his feet kept twitching. Another had flicked out Lovington’s eyeballs with the point of his knife. They hung on his cheeks like boiled eggs dangling from bloody strings.

The metallic clank of spurs roused Lovington and he croaked, “Shoot me! In th’ name of God-- shoot me!”

Now that is undoubtedly stark, particularly for a novel penned in 1955.

In Apache Ambush, Mr. Cook dishes up another one of his hyper-competent cavalry procedurals.

The land is right, the protocol is right, the men are dust-caked and hard.

It has predictable formulary elements to it that prevent it from being raised to an A level but the ride along the way is so true to lived experience that is easily head and shoulders above many a formulary tale by others who lack his life-experience.

I read Cook for his starkness and also for his offhand observations of the human character, as in the next extract.

Like many weak men, he easily mistook desperation for courage and this ride, in spite of pain and discomfort, would remain a hallmark in his life.

In my estimation, lesser Cook is what many another western author strives for on their best days.