High Country by Peter Dawson

Thorndike, Maine (Thorndike Press, 1992). Originally published 1947.

Many western readers know Peter Dawson is the nom de plume of Johnathan H. Glidden, brother to Frederick Glidden, better known as Luke Short. The latter may be the more-recognized name, because a number of his stories were adapted into well-remembered Hollywood movies, and Short had a strong career as a writer for the slicks.

Dawson had a long career of his own. I recently read a trio of his stories in Ghost Brand of the Wishbones, and as a result wanted to try out a novel-length work by him.

The stories in Ghost Brand were entertaining, but their artifice as stories was evident: the cause-and-effect of the action that moved the plot seemed a little forced, as did the romantic elements of the stories. Something organic was missing. I wondered if the limited lengths of the stories might have played a part in Dawson’s narratives seeming a bit stilted, and if a longer form -- the novel -- might allow him more room to build and develop his story and characters more naturally.

In reading High Country, I think my intuition was correct.

The novel features Jim Sherill’s plans to sell a herd of horses to prove his worth to the self-proclaimed Commodore Lovelace, a riverboat magnate, so he may take the hand of the Commodore’s daughter, Ruth, in marriage. Jim’s plans are thwarted when his herd is stolen. He tracks down the rustlers, insinuates his way into their camp with a story that they can throw in together and make money selling stolen horses from Canada to the Army in nearby Whitewater, and can also send horses rustled nearby from the region for sale up in Canada.

Along the way, he meets Jean Ruick, running her father’s ranch after the old man’s death with the help of a trusted old hand, Brick, and her uncle, Caleb Donovan, whom she doesn’t quite trust. Jim falls for Jean after he realizes how shallow Ruth actually is and how greedy and domineering the Commodore truly is -- infatuation had blinded Jim to the faults of both, and Jean’s integrity and honesty strike home at his heart.

In the course of the novel, Jim wins over one of the rustler’s lieutenants, and the two steal back Jim’s herd. Donovan’s involvement in the rustling is revealed, and Jim loses his herd again -- and Jean’s trusted hand, Brick, is murdered.

If this plot sounds convoluted, it’s so only because I’ve condensed the narrative so concisely. Peter Dawson pulls it all off very nicely. In the limited confines of a short story or novelette, this plot wouldn’t have worked at all. But in the more forgiving parameters of a novel, Dawson uses the larger narrative space to construct a world, a situation, with fully developed characters and with appropriate pacing to end up with a very enjoyable story.

By the end of the tale, we reach a very satisfactory wrap up. The bad guys get their deserved comeuppance, and the weary and hard-working good guys -- and gals -- end up in one another’s arms.

I’m pleased that my curiosity led me to try out Dawson’s efforts in the longer form. I’m also pleased to say that I’ll be looking for more Peter Dawson novels to read.

Blue Book Artists

I want to pass along some links to a dandy blog I visit on a frequent basis, Today's Inspiration. It focus on illustration -- for magazines, books, whatever -- and the illustrators who have made their mark in our cultural awareness of our world. Many of them toiled away, basically unknown -- not everyone became a household word like Norman Rockwell.

My reason for pointing to this blog today is that its creator, Leif Peng, has focused a number of posts on illustrator Austin Briggs. Briggs toiled in the pulp magazines -- primarily Blue Book -- and followed Alex Raymond as artist on the Flash Gordon newspaper strip, before moving to the slicks.

Peng looks primarily at Briggs' work for the slicks, then launches into profiles of artists who worked on Blue Book. This latter was a pulp magazine -- bibliographer Mike Ashley has called it a slick in pulp clothing (I may be misquoting here, but you get the idea) -- that published a lot of western fiction, including by big western names like Max Brand and Luke Short. (To be honest, I'm not sure off the top of my head whether Max Brand/Frederick Faust published any westerns in Blue Book. I don't have my Max Brand Companion close to hand to check the bibliography there, but I know he published at least two adventure stories there -- at least one a serial, Luck of the Spindrift.)

Here are the links to Today's Inspiration's posts looking at Briggs.

AUSTIN BRIGGS at Today's Inspiration:
The Obstinate Briggs Standard

Development Through Struggle

Merciless in his Scrutiny

Regarded an an Important Young Illustrator

The Discovery of Self


BLUE BOOK ARTISTS at Today's Inspiration:
The Artists of Blue Book: John Fulton

The Artists of Blue Book: Hamilton Greene

The Artists of Blue Book: Maurice Bower

The WWWA reads The Cheyenne Pool by Lewis Patten

Okay, here is the inaugural posting from the Mercantile’s reading group, The Woodstove Whittlers and Wrangling Association. You may want to wear your boots, as the muck sometimes gets high in the course of these meetings.

The reading group has been busy fussing over the merits (or the opposite) of a few volumes during the past months. Most activity occurs during the winter, but occasional discussions take place in the rest of the year. The reading group was the idea of Adolphus Husky -- he wanted an excuse to tell his wife whenever she claimed he was being lazy sitting around the woodstove at the Mercantile all winter; by participating in the rigorous and vigorous debates on literature, Adolphus could say he was expanding his mind. When he played this tactic one day at the dinner table, his wife, Renee, then asked if his mind would need a longer belt by the middle of February, just like his britches do each year.

While discussions were lively this past winter among the Association members, there were no violent outbursts of grub-throwing as when the topic of Brokeback Mountain came up -- all vittles stayed in the pot and on the plates these recent weeks. (However, more than one discerning critic suggested that Pickle Pennington was making a silent and subliminal derogatory remark about a colleague's comments on a storyteller’s abilities when he wiped his mouth on his flannel sleeve after eating the homemade apple fritter contributed to a recent potluck. Harsh words followed until cooler minds served the ice cream.)

But these sorts of warm discussions keep the chill off while the snow wheels around outside the front door. So without further ado, here is one of the books the Association tackled this past winter.

The Cheyenne Pool by Lewis B. Patten
This is the first book by Patten the Association read. Buell, oldest of the Barlow brothers, had heard good things about his work, so we all agreed it was time to give it a try.

This is a well-written, traditional western by this prolific author. A group of cattle owners (the Cheyenne Pool) are keeping smaller ranchers off free range illegally by preventing other folks from filing claims on the land with their hired muscle. The primary character is Dan Foxworthy, foreman for the Pool. Trouble starts when Foxworthy kills a cow belonging to one of the small ranchers as a warning not to rustle any more beef from the Pool. The novel follows Foxworthy’s change from a hard-boiled, I’m-number-one type of character to a more likeable, more introspective and thoughtful man who decides to make amends for the trouble his fiery temper has caused.

This tale has a hard-boiled quality that suggests Patten was a follower of Luke Short's style of tough-guy cowboy stories. The assembled members of the WWWA appreciated this manly, stoic, don't-give-me-no-guff characterization, although Adolphus mentioned at one point, "You could just see early on this kind of behavior was gonna get Foxworthy in trouble later." Waldo Grinter hooted and said that type of feller needed trouble to come his way to keep him tough. General discussions erupted about what "manly" really should mean, and Buell Barlow pointed out that fire tempers and strengthens iron. Pickle Pennington snorted and said the character's name was Foxworthy, not Fireworthy, and Buell should pay better attention to the page. Adolphus said Foxworthy was proper in taking no guff off anyone. Conversation got louder after that, and the spit sometimes didn't make it all the way to the spittoons, but by the time dusk fell and things quieted a bit -- that is, when Renee Husky arrived and informed Adolphus the furnace pilot light needed a fresh match put to it -- everyone agreed this was a fine selection for the group, and likely we'd be reading more by Patten in the future.

Some of Patten's books have been reprinted the last few years in large print library editions, so you don't just have to haunt used bookstores and thrift shops for his titles these days. Unfortunately, the most recent edition of The Cheyenne Pool appeared in 1993, so may be tougher to locate. You can check out its availability at Amazon.com by clicking here.