A Century of Great Western Stories Read online

  Hilton Head Island,

  South Carolina

  1 December 1999

  1 Of necessity, Max Brand is included in this collection, represented by what many consider his finest short story. His popularity and mind-blowing output can’t be ignored.

  2 We would have liked to include “3:10 to Yuma,” arguably Leonard’s finest Western story, in this book, but the rights to his Western stories were unavailable at the time of publication.

  3 It’s hard for me to fathom the reason The Postman tanked with such speed and completeness. I found it a watchable three hours, no worse than scores of other pictures and, in some respects, better. I submit that it, too, is a Western. Post-Atomic, but a Western.

  4 As I write this in late autumn of 1998, and cast an eye at Washington, I can only murmur a thoroughly bipartisan, “Amen.”

  Preface

  In the beginning …

  by John Jakes

  IN THE BEGINNING there was the 19th-century dime novel.

  As I wrote in my essay The Western and How We Got It,1 “The Western was, in its first life, an Eastern… . The earliest dime novels were created in the tradition of Cooper, (William Gilmore) Simms, and Sir Walter Scott. The very first one of them, Malaeska: The Indian Wife of the White Hunter, was published in June 1860 by the firm of Beadle and Company of William Street, New York. The work … had already appeared as a prize story in a magazine called The Ladies’ Companion.” The “frontier” which the story explored for the wide-eyed reader was the Catskill mountains of New York.

  Edmund Pearson described this new publishing format as “… a thin little book … about six inches high and four inches broad … the covers were of saffron paper—the book was a ‘yellow-backed Beadle.’” Though clerics, parents, and other guardians of morality soon viewed Beadle novels as insidious threats, millions read and came to love these thrill-packed tales of honorable heroes, pure heroines, and rotten villains, encased in layers of purple prose in which dialogue frequently ended with one or more exclams (!!!).

  Over the years the dime novel’s format changed. Beadle’s plain saffron covers were replaced by illustrations, usually engravings but later luridly colored line art. Whatever the package, the popularity of the contents lasted well into the first decade of the 20th century, by which time the Western story as we know it was emerging in general fiction magazines.

  Was there literary value in dime novels? Apart from the pleasure they provided, hardly. The critic E. F. Bleiler in his introduction to a collection of eight representative dime novels observes, “… Malaeska … was an adult story, reasonably well told, a competent example of early Victorian commercial writing. It would be pleasant to say that the dime novel held to this level, but it would not be true… . What began as a marketing venture for adult books ended as an almost entirely juvenile form.”

  Dime novels typically featured series characters: a detective (Old King Brady, Nick Carter); a clever inventor (Frank Reade, Jack Wright); a college athlete (Frank Merriwell); or, once the reading public became aware of major events and figures in the Western expansion, frontiersmen (Deadwood Dick et al.) A bright star in this constellation, discovered and first written about in 1869 by Edward Zane Carroll Judson under the pseudonym Ned Buntline, was William F. Cody. Cody’s chief chronicler, however, was an ex-Confederate soldier of fortune, Colonel Prentiss Ingraham. An excerpt from Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood (subtitled “Deeds of Daring and Romantic Incidents in the Life of Wm. F. Cody, the Monarch of Bordermen”), will demonstrate the Ingraham style. The story was published in Beadle’s Boys Library in 1881. In Chapter XXX, “The Yellow Hand Duel,” Ingraham writes:

  “The scout and the chief came within a hundred yards of each other.

  “Then the Indian cried out in his own tongue:

  “‘I know Pa-e-has-ka the Great White Hunter and want to fight him.’”

  “‘Then come on, you red devil, and have it out,’ shouted Buffalo Bill.”

  Soon the scout and the Cheyenne brave are locked in hand-to-hand combat. The fight, “hardly five seconds in duration,” ends predictably:

  “Buffalo Bill had driven his knife into the broad red breast, and then tore from his head the scalp and feather war-bonnet, and waving it over his head, shouted in ringing tones:

  “‘Bravo! The first scalp to avenge Custer!’” (Italics are Ingraham’s.)

  Because the settled East was insatiably curious about the Wild West, it was probably inevitable that famous bad men became dime-novel heroes or, to use a modern term, anti-heroes.

  Foremost among these were the James brothers. After their initial appearance, they quickly became so popular, other publishers featured them too. At one time Street and Smith published both Jesse James Stories and The James Boys Weekly. E. F. Bleiler again:

  “Many of these stories were completely fictional, and had no relationship whatever to the historical doings of Jesse and Frank. A typical example is Jesse James’s Diamond Deal, or Robbing the Red Hands … [1902], in which Jesse destroys a criminal secret society and hijacks their loot. Of all the major publishers only Beadle refused to chronicle the nefarious doings of the Jameses.”

  In the 1890s publishers had already discovered cross merchandising. A famous dime-novel detective challenged the outlaws in his own publication, in a story entitled The James Boys in Boston, or Old King Brady and the Car of Gold.

  While the various authors writing Frank and Jesse stories couldn’t hide the history of the brothers, they could at least put a literary spin on their characters. Consider this short selection from Frank James on the Trail (1882), author unknown. The speaker is Frank himself:

  “‘Stow it!’” thundered the bushranger. ‘Don’t try any of your gibberish with me. I ain’t been very particular in my life about knocking a fellow on the head if he stood in my way, but if I did a trifle more, I never put a pal’s life in my pocket and drunk out his heart’s blood in the nearest saloon. No; the James boys never sold a pal or sneaked a swag. Frank always went straight to his work, whether it was a man or a bank. No; he’d stand or fall like a man, not like a cur that would bite you in your sleep, and sell your wisen2 to the rope as he would a bale of wool or a cask of tallow.’”

  From these purple roots grew the form we celebrate in this collection.

  1 The Arbor House Treasury of Great Western Stories, ed. Pronzini Greenberg, Arbor House, 1982.

  2 Meaning unclear. Possibly it’s a variant of “wisent,” a word commonly used in the 1860s–80s as a synonym for bison. See Random House Dictionary of the English Language. Using this interpretation, however, the line still makes no sense.

  Louis L’Amour was the most successful Western writer of all time, selling 15,000–20,000 books a day at the height of his popularity. He wrote the kind of action fiction beloved by so many generations of Americans, with strong heroes, evil villains, proud, energetic heroines, and all of the excitement and danger that the West represented. His novels include such masterpieces as Hondo, Shalako, Down the Long Hills, The Cherokee Trail, and Last of the Breed. His most famous series was the Sacketts saga, later made into several television movies. And yet, often overlooked in all his success, was the gentler and more philosophic side of L’Amour, as demonstrated in this wonderful story.

  The Gift of Cochise

  Louis L’Amour

  Tense, and white to the lips, Angie Lowe stood in the door of her cabin with a double-barreled shotgun in her hands. Besides the door was a Winchester ’73, and on the table inside the house were two Walker Colts.

  Facing the cabin were twelve Apaches on ragged calico ponies, and one of the Indians had lifted his hand palm outward. The Apache sitting the white-splashed bay pony was Cochise.

  Beside Angie were her seven-year-old son Jimmy and her five-year-old daughter Jane.

  Cochise sat his pony in silence; his black, unreadable eyes studied the woman, the children, the cabin, and the small garden. He looked at the two ponies in the corra
l and the three cows. His eyes strayed to the small stack of hay cut from the meadow, and to the few steers farther up the canyon.

  Three times the warriors of Cochise had attacked this solitary cabin and three times they had been turned back. In all, they had lost seven men, and three had been wounded. Four ponies had been killed. His braves reported that there was no man in the house, only a woman and two children, so Cochise had come to see for himself this woman who was so certain a shot with a rifle and who killed his fighting men.

  These were some of the same fighting men who had outfought, outguessed, and outrun the finest American army on record, an army outnumbering the Apaches by a hundred to one. Yet a lone woman with two small children had fought them off, and the woman was scarcely more than a girl. And she was prepared to fight now. There was a glint of admiration in the old eyes that appraised her. The Apache was a fighting man, and he respected fighting blood.

  “Where is your man?”

  “He has gone to El Paso.” Angie’s voice was steady, but she was frightened as she had never been before. She recognized Cochise from descriptions, and she knew that if he decided to kill or capture her it would be done. Until now, the sporadic attacks she had fought off had been those of casual bands of warriors who raided her in passing.

  “He has been gone a long time. How long?”

  Angie hesitated, but it was not in her to lie. “He has been gone four months.”

  Cochise considered that. No one but a fool would leave such a woman, or such fine children. Only one thing could have prevented his return. “Your man is dead,” he said.

  Angie waited, her heart pounding with heavy, measured beats. She had guessed long ago that Ed had been killed but the way Cochise spoke did not imply that Apaches had killed him, only that he must be dead or he would have returned.

  “You fight well,” Cochise said. “You have killed my young men.”

  “Your young men attacked me.” She hesitated then added, “They stole my horses.”

  “Your man is gone. Why do you not leave?”

  Angie looked at him with surprise. “Leave? Why, this is my home. This land is mine. This spring is mine. I shall not leave.”

  “This was an Apache spring,” Cochise reminded her reasonably.

  “The Apache lives in the mountains,” Angie replied. “He does not need this spring. I have two children, and I do need it.”

  “But when the Apache comes this way, where shall he drink? His throat is dry and you keep him from water.”

  The very fact that Cochise was willing to talk raised her hopes. There had been a time when the Apache made no war on the white man. “Cochise speaks with a forked tongue,” she said. “There is water yonder.” She gestured toward the hills, where Ed had told her there were springs. “But if the people of Cochise come in peace they may drink at this spring.”

  The Apache leader smiled faintly. Such a woman would rear a nation of warriors. He nodded at Jimmy. “The small one—does he also shoot?”

  “He does,” Angie said proudly, “and well, too!” She pointed at an upthrust leaf of prickly pear. “Show them, Jimmy.”

  The prickly pear was an easy two hundred yards away, and the Winchester was long and heavy, but he lifted it eagerly and steadied it against the doorjamb as his father had taught him, held his sight an instant, then fired. The bud on top of the prickly pear disintegrated.

  There were grunts of appreciation from the dark-faced warriors. Cochise chuckled.

  “The little warrior shoots well. It is well you have no man. You might raise an army of little warriors to fight my people.”

  “I have no wish to fight your people,” Angie said quietly. “Your people have your ways, and I have mine. I live in peace when I am left in peace. I did not think,” she added with dignity, “that the great Cochise made war on women!”

  The Apache looked at her, then turned his pony away. “My people will trouble you no longer,” he said. “You are the mother of a strong son.”

  “What about my two ponies?” she called after him. “Your young men took them from me.”

  Cochise did not turn or look back, and the little cavalcade of riders followed him away. Angie stepped back into the cabin and closed the door. Then she sat down abruptly, her face white, the muscles in her legs trembling.

  When morning came, she went cautiously to the spring for water. Her ponies were back in the corral. They had been returned during the night.

  Slowly, the days drew on. Angie broke a small piece of the meadow and planted it. Alone, she cut hay in the meadow and built another stack. She saw Indians several times, but they did not bother her. One morning, when she opened the door, a quarter of an antelope lay on the step, but no Indian was in sight. Several times, during the weeks that followed, she saw moccasin tracks near the spring.

  Once, going out at daybreak, she saw an Indian girl dipping water from the spring. Angie called to her, and the girl turned quickly, facing her. Angie walked toward her, offering a bright red silk ribbon. Pleased at the gift, the Apache girl left.

  And the following morning there was another quarter of an antelope on her step—but she saw no Indian.

  Ed Lowe had built the cabin in West Dog Canyon in the spring of 1871, but it was Angie who chose the spot, not Ed. In Sante Fe they would have told you that Ed Lowe was good-looking, shiftless, and agreeable. He was, also, unfortunately handy with a pistol.

  Angie’s father had come from County Mayo to New York and from New York to the Mississippi, where he became a tough, brawling river boatman. In New Orleans, he met a beautiful Cajun girl and married her. Together, they started west for Santa Fe, and Angie was born en route. Both parents died of cholera when Angie was fourteen. She lived with an Irish family for the following three years, then married Ed Lowe when she was seventeen.

  Santa Fe was not good for Ed, and Angie kept after him until they started south. It was Apache country, but they kept on until they reached the old Spanish ruin in West Dog. Here there were grass, water, and shelter from the wind. There was fuel, and there were pinons and game. And Angie, with an Irish eye for the land, saw that it would grow crops.

  The house itself was built on the ruins of the old Spanish building, using the thick walls and the floor. The location had been admirably chosen for defense. The house was built in a corner of the cliff, under the sheltering overhang, so that approach was possible from only two directions, both covered by an easy field of fire from the door and windows.

  For seven months, Ed worked hard and steadily. He put in the first crop, he built the house, and proved himself a handy man with tools. He repaired the old plow they had bought, cleaned out the spring, and paved and walled it with slabs of stone. If he was lonely for the carefree companions of Santa Fe, he gave no indication of it. Provisions were low, and when he finally started off to the south, Angie watched him go with an ache in her heart.

  She did not know whether she loved Ed. The first flush of enthusiasm had passed, and Ed Lowe had proved something less than she had believed. But he had tried, she admitted. And it had not been easy for him. He was an amiable soul, given to whittling and idle talk, all of which he missed in the loneliness of the Apache country. And when he rode away, she had no idea whether she would ever see him again. She never did.

  Santa Fe was far and away to the north, but the growing village of El Paso was less than a hundred miles to the west, and it was there Ed Lowe rode for supplies and seed.

  He had several drinks—his first in months—in one of the saloons. As the liquor warmed his stomach, Ed Lowe looked around agreeably. For a moment, his eyes clouded with worry as he thought of his wife and children back in Apache country, but it was not in Ed Lowe to worry for long. He had another drink and leaned on the bar, talking to the bartender. All Ed had ever asked of life was enough to eat, a horse to ride, an occasional drink, and companions to talk with. Not that he had anything important to say. He just liked to talk.

  Suddenly a chair grated on the floo
r, and Ed turned. A lean, powerful man with a shock of uncut black hair and a torn, weather-faded shirt stood at bay. Facing him across the table were three hard-faced young men, obviously brothers.

  Ches Lane did not notice Ed Lowe watching from the bar. He had eyes only for the men facing him. “You done that deliberate!” The statement was a challenge.

  The broad-chested man on the left grinned through broken teeth. “That’s right, Ches. I done it deliberate. You killed Dan Tolliver on the Brazos.”

  “He made the quarrel.” Comprehension came to Ches. He was boxed, and by three of the fighting, blood-hungry Tollivers.

  “Don’t make no difference,” the broad-chested Tolliver said. “‘Who sheds a Tolliver’s blood, by a Tolliver’s hand must die!’”

  Ed Lowe moved suddenly from the bar. “Three to one is long odds,” he said, his voice low and friendly. “If the gent in the corner is willin’, I’ll side him.”

  Two Tollivers turned toward him. Ed Lowe was smiling easily, his hand hovering near his gun. “You stay out of this!” one of the brothers said harshly.

  “I’m in,” Ed replied. “Why don’t you boys light a shuck?”

  “No, by—!” The man’s hand dropped for his gun, and the room thundered with sound.

  Ed was smiling easily, unworried as always. His gun flashed up. He felt it leap in his hand, saw the nearest Tolliver smashed back, and he shot him again as he dropped. He had only time to see Ches Lane with two guns out and another Tolliver down when something struck him through the stomach and he stepped back against the bar, suddenly sick.

  The sound stopped, and the room was quiet, and there was the acrid smell of powder smoke. Three Tollivers were down and dead, and Ed Lowe was dying. Ches Lane crossed to him.

  “We got ’em,” Ed said, “we sure did. But they got me.”

  Suddenly his face changed. “Oh Lord in heaven, what’ll Angie do?” And then he crumpled over on the floor and lay still, the blood staining his shirt and mingling with the sawdust.