The Mammoth Book of Westerns

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The Mammoth Book of Westerns Page 61

by Jon E. Lewis


  She’s walking again, and now she’s got a new plan: she’ll blank her mind; she’s thinking about home, she’s going through the drawers of the steel cabinet unit and she’s picturing the knives, the forks; she’s counting the spoons, including the baby spoon with the chipped plastic handle that has a line of ducks on it, except the yellow paint they used for the beaks washed off. She’s trying to count the floorboards in the kitchen, but it isn’t working; she’s still on that baby spoon. She has held that spoon for four babies, scooped in the first mouthfuls of pears and custard, given those four babies their first tastes of life on that spoon. Even now she can feel through the handle the cleaning tug of the baby’s lips when he or she is hungry, and the resistance of the tongue that moves her hand aside when he’s not. She’s given her children everything on that spoon, and now she wants to hold it and look at those beakless ducks.

  When she gets back to the bars, the neon is bright, not because it is dark or will be in three more hours, but because the watch has changed at the Minuteman base and the boys will soon be here. She’s standing there, just one of the girls, and a big red pickup goes by and takes a wide U-turn back, and she looks away and says to herself, Please, let it be some ranch hand looking for a whore, but it’s not, and she does not ask herself any more questions about how he did it. He has dropped down on her through a hole in the day, a parting of clouds straight up to the sun. He parks alongside her and comes forward halfway and stands crazy, so spent that she thinks he will fall, and they look at each other until it seems that he has started talking without making a sound.

  “Lonnie,” he says, “I won’t hurt you.” There’s gravel in his voice, he’s hoarse and it makes her think he’s been crying.

  She looks into the truck and sees the baby, who starts pumping his arms up and down in a little dance, even though he’s still strapped in. “Mommy,” he shouts. She can’t help smiling, the baby makes her smile and laugh for the first time in five days. She can feel the tug to him, powerful, intoxicating. He’s every bit as demanding as before, as merciless, as selfish as he reaches, but there’s a sweetness now; the difference is she wants to give it to him, to all the kids, to Grant. Her body starts flowing toward the baby, her breasts heavy.

  “Oh God, Grant, you brought the baby.” As she says this she pictures the two of them riding in the truck together, side by side, and remembers how so long ago she loved to think of him and the kids together.

  “I didn’t have no choice,” he says, but she sees through it, she knows he couldn’t have found her alone.

  “Where are the others?” It is suddenly agony to be apart from them.

  “Carry!” yells the baby from the truck. “Carry,” he yells again, reaching out, and she can feel herself open for him, a torrent now, a cloudburst.

  “They’re safe. Do we still have another coming?”

  “I can’t have another. I can’t do it. You can’t make me.”

  “I want you back. I need you back.”

  “You can have me back, Grant. I want to come home. I miss my babies.” She’s trying not to cry. She’s Lonnie, she’s only twenty-nine, she has come to this place and cannot escape. “But this child will kill me.”

  And Grant has known for five days that he can come this far and no farther. He’ll choose the living, he’ll choose Lonnie. And Lonnie has known for five days that whether she likes it or not, Grant and her babies are everything for her, that she wants nothing else. She is crying now as she passes Grant on her way to the truck. She picks up the baby and he feels like satin, and the three of them stand for a moment on this spot in this city beside the Missouri River. Lonnie thinks of the river on the map, flowing north out of Great Falls almost to Canada before it begins to drop south-east, straight back home through South Dakota. They could almost ride home on a raft.

  THE HUNDRED BEST WESTERN NOVELS

  The following is a personal list, based largely on my own reading and preferences. However, since the intention of the list is to give the interested reader suggestions for further reading, I have occasionally included books which have achieved classic status or have had a significant influence on the course of Western fiction, although they are not personal favourites. The dates refer to the year of first publication. The list is arranged in alphabetical order by surname, not in order of preference or importance.

  Edward Abbey The Monkey Wrench Gang, 1971

  Andy Adams The Log of a Cowboy, 1903

  Clifton Adams Tragg’s Choice, 1969

  Ann Ahlswede Hunting Wolf, 1960

  Verne Athanas Maverick, 1956

  Gertrude Atherton The Californians, 1898

  Rick Bass The Diezmo, 2005

  Todhunter Ballard Gold in California, 1965

  Thomas Berger Little Big Man, 1964

  Frank Bonham Lost Stage Valley, 1948

  Snaketrack, 1952

  B. M. Bower Chip of the Flying U, 1906

  Max Brand Destry Rides Again, 1930

  Will C. Brown The Nameless Breed, 1960

  W. R. Burnett Saint Johnson, 1930

  Benjamin Capps The Trail to Ogallala, 1964

  Forrest Carter The Vengeance Trail of Josey Wales, 1976

  Willa Cather O Pioneers!, 1913

  My Antonia, 1918

  Walter Van Tilburg Clark The Ox-Bow Incident, 1940

  James Fenimore Cooper The Last of the Mohicans, 1826

  Stephen Crane The Blue Hotel, 1898

  E. L. Doctorow Welcome to Hard Times, 1960

  Loren D. Estleman Bloody Season, 1988

  Max Evans The Hi Lo Country, 1941

  Howard Fast The Last Frontier, 1961

  Harvey Fergusson Blood of the Conqueror, 1921

  Home in the West, 1940

  Vardis Fisher Children of God, 1939

  Steve Frazee Rendezvous, 1958

  Norman A. Fox Night Passage, 1956

  Bill Gulick A Drum Calls West, 1962

  Zane Grey Riders of the Purple Sage, 1912

  The Vanishing America, 1925

  A. B. Guthrie The Big Sky, 1947

  The Way West, 1949

  Frank Gruber Fort Starvation, 1953

  Ron Hansen The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, 1983

  Ernest Haycox Bugles in the Afternoon, 1944

  Border Trumpet, 1939

  Will Henry (pseud. Henry Wilson Allen)

  From Where the Sun Now Stands, 1960

  Gates of the Mountain, 1963

  The Last Warpath, 1966

  Tony Hillerman A Thief of Time, 1989

  Paul Horgan A Distant Trumpet, 1960

  Emerson Hough The Covered Wagon, 1922

  Helen Hunt Jackson Ramona, 1884

  Elmer Kelton Buffalo Wagons, 1956

  The Day the Cowboys Quit, 1970

  The Time It Never Rained, 1973

  Ken Kesey One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 1962

  Oliver La Farge The Enemy Gods, 1937

  Laughing Boy, 1929

  Louis L’Amour Hondo, 1953

  Last Stand at Papago Wells, 1957

  Tom Lea The Wonderful Country, 1952

  Lee Leighton (pseud. Wayne D. Overholser) Lawman, 1953

  Alan LeMay The Searchers, 1954

  Elmore Leonard Hombre, 1961

  Valdez is Coming, 1969

  Bliss Lomax (pseud. Henry Sinclair Drago)

  The Leatherburners, 1939

  Jack London The Call of the Wild, 1903

  Noel M. Loomis Short Cut to Red River, 1958

  Rim of the Caprock, 1959

  Milton Lott The Last Hunt, 1954

  Giles A Lutz The Honyocker, 1962

  Cormac McCarthy Blood Meridian, 1995

  Thomas McGuane Nobody’s Angel, 1981

  Something to be Desired, 1981

  Larry McMurtry Horseman, Pass By, 1961

  Lonesome Dove, 1985

  James A. Michener Centennial, 1974

  N. Scott Momaday House Made of Dawn, 1968

  Frank Norris
The Octopus, 1901

  Nelson C. Nye Riders By Night, 1950

  Robert Olmstead Far Bright Star, 2009

  T. V. Olsen Bitter Grass, 1967

  Arrow in the Sun, 1969

  Stephen Overholser A Hanging in Sweetwater, 1975

  Wayne D. Overholser The Violent Land, 1954

  Lewis B. Patten Death of a Gunfighter, 1968

  Bones of the Buffalo, 1967

  John Prebble The Buffalo Soldiers, 1958

  Eugene Manlove Rhodes Pasó Por Aquí, 1927

  Conrad Richter The Sea of Grass, 1937

  Mari Sandoz The Tom-Walker, 1947

  Jack Schaefer Shane, 1949

  Monte Walsh, 1963

  Luke Short Savage Range, 1939

  Leslie Marmon Silko Storyteller, 1981

  Wallace Stegner The Big Rock Candy Mountain, 1943

  John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath, 1939

  W. C. Tuttle Thicker Than Water, 1927

  Mark Twain Roughing It, 1872

  Frank Waters The Man who Killed the Deer, 1942

  James Welch Winter in the Blood, 1986

  Stewart Edward White Folded Hills, 1934

  Harry Whittington Saddle the Storm, 1954

  Owen Wister The Virginian, 1902

  Daniel Woodrell Woe to Live On, 1987

  THE HUNDRED BEST WESTERN SHORT STORIES

  The same rules of selection and arrangement are applied here as with the hundred best Western novels. The dates and places of publication are usually, but not always, those of first publication.

  Clifton Adams, “Hell’s Command”, A Western Bonanza, ed. Todhunter Ballard, 1969

  Ann Ahlswede, “The Promise of the Fruit”, The Pick of the Roundup, ed. Stephen Payne, 1963

  Henry Wilson Allen, “Isley’s Stranger”, Legend and Tales of the Old West, 1962

  Todhunter Ballard, “The Builder of Murdere’s Bar”, WWA Silver Anniversary Anthology, 1977

  S. Omar Barker, “ Bad Company,” Saturday Evening Post, 1955

  “Champs at the Chuckabug”, Great Stories of the West, ed. N. Collier, 1971

  Rick Bass, “Days of Heaven”, In the Legal Mountains, 1995

  James W. Bellah, “Command”, Saturday Evening Post, 1946

  “Massacre”, Saturday Evening Post, 1947

  Frank Bonham, “Burn Him Out”, Argosy, 1949

  “Lovely Little Liar”, Star Western, 1951

  B. M. Bower, “Bad Penny”, Argosy, 1933

  Max Brand, “Wine on the Desert”, Max Brand’s Best Western Stories, ed. W. F. Nolan, 1981

  Will C. Brown, “Red Sand”, Spur Western Novels, 1955

  Raymond Carver, “Sixty Acres”, The Stories of Raymond Carver, 1985

  Willa Cather, “El Dorado”, New England Magazine, 1901

  “On the Divide”, Overland Monthly, 1896

  Walter Van Tilburg Clark, “The Wind and Snow of Winter”, The Watchful Gods, W. Van Tilburg Clark, 1944

  Stephen Crane, “A Man and Some Others”, The Western Writings of Stephen Crane, ed. F. Bergon, 1979

  “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky”, ditto.

  William Cunningham, “The Cloud Puncher”, Out West, ed. J. Schaefer, 1955

  Peggy Simpson Curry, “The Bride Wore Spurs”, Western Romances, P.S. Curry, 1973

  Robert Easton, “To Find a Place”, Great Tales of the American West, ed. H.G. Maule, 1944

  Loren D. Estleman, “The Bandit”, The Best of the West, 1986

  Max Evans, “Candles in the Bottom of the Pool”, South Dakota Review, 1973

  “One Eyed Sky”, Three Short Novels, 1963

  Howard Fast, “Spoil the Child”, Out West, J. Schaefer, 1955

  Clay Fisher, “The White Man’s Road”, The Horse Soldiers, ed.

  B. Pronzini and M.H. Greenberg, 1988

  Vardis Fisher, “Joe Burt’s Wife”, Love and Death, 1959

  “The Scarecrow”, Out West, ed. J. Schaefer, 1955

  Richard Ford, “Great Falls”, Granta, 1987

  “Winterkill”, Esquire, 1983

  Norman A. Fox, “Only the Dead Ride Proudly”, The Valian Ones, 1957

  Steve Frazee, “ Great Medicine”, Gunsmoke, 1953

  “The Man at Gantt’s Place”, Argosy, 1951

  Zane Grey, “Sienna Waits”, Zane Grey’s Greatest Western Stories, ed. L. Grey, 1971

  “Yaqui”, ditto.

  Fred Grove, “Commanche Woman”, The Pick of the Roundup ed. S. Payne, 1963

  Bill Gulick, “The Shaming of Broken Horn”, Saturday Evening Post, 1960

  “Thief In Camp”, Saturday Evening Post, 1958

  A. B. Guthrie, “The Therefore Hog”, The Big It and Other Stories, A. B. Guthrie, 1952

  Bret Harte, “The Luck of Roaring Camp”, Overland Monthly, 1868

  “The Outcasts of Poker Flat”, ditto.

  Ernest Haycox, “Stage of Lordsburg”, By Rope & Lead, E. Haycox, 1951

  “When You Carry the Star”, Murder on the Frontier, E. Haycox, 1952

  O. Henry, “Caballero’s Way”, Heart of the West, O. Henry, 1907 “The Higher Abdication”, ditto.

  Will Henry (pseud. H.W. Allen), “The Tallest Indian in Toltepec”, Great Western Stories, 1965

  Paul Horgan, “The Peach Stone”, The Peach Stone and Other Stories, Paul Horgan, 1967

  Emerson Hough, “ ‘Curly’ Gets Back On the Soil”, Western Story, 1923

  Dorothy M. Johnson, “ Lost Sister”, Collier’s, 1956

  “A Man Called Horse”, Indian Country, Dorothy M. Johnson, 1953

  Ryerson Johnson, “Traitor of the Natchez Trace”, 10 Story Western, 1943

  Elmer Kelton, “The Man on the Wagontongue”, They Won Their Spurs, ed. Nelson Nye, 1962

  William Kittredge, “The Waterfowl Tree”, We Are Not in This Together, 1984

  Oliver La Farge, “All the Young Men”, All the Young Men, Oliver La Farge, 1939

  “A Pause in the Desert”, A Pause in the Desert, Oliver La Farge, 1957

  “The Young Warrior”, Esquire, 1938.

  Louis L’Amour, “The Gift of Cochise”, War Party, Louis L’Amour, 1961

  “War Party”, ditto, 1961

  Elmore Leonard, “3.10 to Yuma”, The Killers, ed. P. Dawson, 1955

  “The Captives”, Argosy, 1955

  Jack London, “All Gold Canyon”, Moon Face, J. London, 1901

  “The One Thousand Dozen”, Jack London: Stories of Adventure, 1980

  “Love of Life”, ditto.

  Noel M. Loomis, “Grandfather Out of the Past”, Frontier West, 1959

  “When the Children Cry for Meat”, The Texans, ed. B. Pronzini and M.H. Greenberg, 1988

  Larry McMurtry, “There Will Be Peace in Korea,” Texas Quarterly, 1964

  Norman Maclean, “A River Runs Through It”, 1976

  George Milburn, “Heel, Toe and 1, 2, 3, 4”, No More Trumpets, George Milburn, 1933

  John G. Neihardt, “The Alien”, The Lonesome Trail, J. G. Neihardt, 1907

  “The Last Thunder Song”, ditto.

  T. V. Olsen, “The Man We Called Jones”, The Gunfighters, ed. B. Pronzini and M. H. Greenberg, 1987

  Wayne D. Overholser, “ Petticoat Brigade”, Zane Grey’s Western Magazine, 1948

  “Beecher Island”, With Guidons Flying, Western Writers of America, 1970

  Lewis B. Patten, “They Called Him a Killer”, Complete Western Book Magazine, 1955

  John Prebble, “A Town Called Hate”, Saturday Evening Post, 1961

  Annie Proulx, “ Brokeback Mountain” Close Range, 1999

  Bill Pronzini, “ All the Long Years’, Westeryear, 1988

  Frederic Remington, “A Sergeant of the Orphan Troop”, Crooked Trails, F. Remington, 1898

  Eugene Manlove Rhodes, “ The Bird in the Bush”, Redbook, 1917

  “Beyond the Desert”, The Best Novels and Stories of Eugene Manlove Rhodes, 1934

  Conrad Richter, “Early Americana”, Early Americana & Other Stories, C. Richter, 1934

  �
�Smoke Over the Prairie”, ditto

  Mari Sandoz, “The Girl in the Humbert”, Out West, ed. J. Schaefer, 1955

  Jack Schaefer, “Emmett Dutrow”, The Big Range Schaefer, 1953

  “One Man’s Honour”, Argosy, 1962

  Luke Short, “Court Day”, Collier’s, 1939

  “Danger Hole”, Western Writers of America Anniversary Anthology, 1969

  Leslie Marmon Silko, “The Man to Send Rain Clouds”, New Mexico Quarterly, 1969

  Wallace Stegner, “The Colt”, Southwest Review, 1943

  John Steinbeck, “The Red Pony”, The Red Pony, J. Steinbeck, 1937

  Thomas Thompson, “Blood on the Sun”, America Magazine, 1954

  “Gun Job”, They Brought Their Guns,T. Thompson, 1954

  Christopher Tilghman, “Hole in the Day” Best of the West 3, 1999

  Mark Twain, “The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”, The Portable Mark Twain, 1983

  Wayne Ude, “ Enter Ramona, Laughing”, Buffalo & Other Stories, W. Ude, 1975

  Stewart Edward White, “The Honk-Honk Breed”, Arizona Nights, S. E. White, 1907

  Owen Wister, “How Lin McLean Went East”, Harper’s, 1892

  “The Sign of the Last Chance”, When West Was West, O. Wister 1928

 

 

 


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