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
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�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
