Cynthia Haseloff was a Texas born western writer who lived her authoring years in Arkansas near Fort Smith. She is a historian and a Judge Parker apologist. Parker (1838-1896) was known as the “Hanging Judge” and sentenced 160 people to death in a fourteen-year period. According to Fort Smith National Historic Site Parker made contributions in rehabilitating offenders, reforming the criminal justice system and advocating for the rights of the Indian nations. But I figured it’s worth mentioning and kind of interesting into the mindset of the author when writing this book. There is an afterword from Haseloff where she expresses her opinions for anyone interested to know more.
The basic premise: Five bandits plan to rob a train. One of the bandits mysteriously doesn’t show up. Our badman protagonist, Pace Reid gets shot in the process of robbing the train. He barely survives as he holes up in a small cavern nearby. He eventually heals enough to get up and out but the marshal Ruven Blood is out for…well, blood. Pace is now on the run, getting all the help he can from the criminal underground just so he can survive long enough to take down the man who betrayed him.
Sounds like an awesome action filled vengeance story from the perspective of the bad guys right?
Unfortunately, it’s not all that.
Pace travels through the rugged outlaw West getting into skirmishes and happening upon situations where he has moral dilemmas. This thing reads like parables. Throughout the trip Pace reminisces about his outlaw past and how it reflects on his current situation. I kept wondering who the intended audience was for this. People in prison? Alcoholics? Sinners? This book should have been called Reformman.
There is action in it though. Shoot outs. Fist fights. Hard living and hard traveling. All the things you want in a western except the vengeance part. Forgiveness is part of the real world. Understanding and compromise. As it should be. But the reason I read books, especially the books I read, is that I want to live vicariously through the characters in the book. When someone wrongs you, I want bullets cracking skulls, man. No cheeks turned unless it’s attached to the head rolling into a grave. This book had way too much redemption of Pace’s character. I just wanted a bloodbath not a morality lesson.
That being said, she wrote it really well. It was very introspective with many shades of grey. There wasn’t any definitive right and wrong. And to be honest, if you were a dude sitting in your jail cell and someone handed you this book, it would probably hit you hard in the gut and make you start thinking.
She does include the historical character of Judge Parker and in this he’s a firm but understanding kind of guy. So, we get a little historical fiction albeit of a certain opinion. She also had some forgiving comments on wild west bandits wherein she basically states they were anarchists who weren’t really into robbing from their fellow countrymen but were doing it as a protest against the US Government. Yeah, I don’t know, sounds like wishful thinking to me but I wasn’t there and it’s her book so she can say whatever she wants, and it really didn’t bother me story wise.
I wasn’t into this book. I wanted bandits and vengeance, and it didn’t fully deliver but it did give a taste. But it wasn’t bad. Haseloff definitely had story telling chops with layers of in-depth characterization, but it wasn’t enough to overcome my desire to satiate my blood lust.
Bantam Books 1983
Cover art: Guy Deel
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