Gun Hand by Frank O’Rourke

 

“He had no real zest for the job; that was lost in the past and he was beyond the age of eagerness. The old urge for trouble had died in his chest, the once bright game had passed on to younger men.”

That is Mr. O’Rourke describing an aging John McCabe’s view of having lost his taste for plunging into wild ways.

In this blog, I have made it no secret that I consider O’Rourke one of the best in the genre even…even if many of his novels suffer from plots that hew to formula.

I read O’Rourke not for the freshness of the tale [that can occur] but for the riding along for a while inside the skull of a Man who Sees the World.

A Man who Sees the world well.

I won’t offer plot here, that is seldom the way in these pages, rather I will offer another extract.

Here we go from food at a station to ride along on a stagecoach to first viewing of a town.

One paragraph. One.

It tells far more than the words on the page.

“He rose early and ate his breakfast at the counter before the other passengers came down, and took his place beside the driver on the top seat, busied himself with a stick on his muddy boots when she came to the door. He rode all day in moody silence that bothered the driver, and eventually pulled them completely apart. He watched the changing land as they galloped north along the river, made their stop at noon to change teams, and galloped on again. Two hours before sunset they swung into a broader road lined with houses and barns and fields. They clattered over a planked creek bridge and swung into a wide street that boasted the business of this town--- eight solid blocks of stores and saloons and hotels, all slapped together in a rush from green lumber, but there to stay and to be replaced by the brick, for this town was a comer. They pushed into the stage yard and stopped and the lassitude that followed so much movement struck them all as they got down and looked about at the town.”

One paragraph. More setting, character, and story than many an entire chapter.