LAWDOG

 

LAWDOG
The Life and Times of Hayden Tilden
By J. Lee Butts
Berkley, November 2001

“That morning a kid reporter from the local newspaper made his way up the stairs to meet me on the retirement home’s porch. He wanted my life story, secrets and all, and he wasn’t fixing on settling for anything less. After some thought, I asked myself: What can it hurt? All them killers are long gone by now. Ain’t no point in keeping it to myself anymore…”

In the Old West, where a man could be shot for just about anything and the law was that there was no law, Saginaw Bob Magruder hit bottom in the depths of depravity. Known everywhere as the most ruthless of all wanted criminals, Saginaw Bob could kill a child without thinking twice.

U.S. Marshal Hayden Tilden was still a growing boy when Magruder curved the path of Tilden’s life – and butchered his entire family. Left to fend for himself, young Hayden vowed to exact vengeance on Magruder, if it took his whole lifetime. So began his personal crusade – and the beginning of an extraordinary career. Hailed as the most fearless lawdog of the Old West, at times Tilden blurred the line between U.S. marshal and hired assassin. And in doing so, he etched a name for himself on the pages of American history by saving the West, time and again, from its fiercest enemy – itself.

Let’s start off by saying this is a great book. You don’t have to get very far into it to understand why it became the first of a series. Whether it was originally intended to be book one in a series about Hayden Tilden or a standalone, I have no idea. Part of me wonders if it was written as a standalone as it covers so many years.

J. Lee Butts has written a tough, and at time brutal, western. One that easily held my attention throughout. Tilden is a great character, as are many of the other people who appear in this story, be they other lawmen, outlaws, a reporter, or an old-timer that Tilden is friends with in the retirement home. There are also a handful of real people who Tilden meets, one of whom he works for. 

Butts also includes some wry observations, and moments of humour, mostly during the scenes set in the retirement home when Tilden reflects on old age and life as a retiree. 

The book is written in the first person, told through Hayden Tilden. The idea of having a reporter wanting to do a story about the life of an old-timer isn’t new, but it came over as fresh and was certainly very engaging. In fact, I started to look forward to the next part of Tilden’s conversations with the reporter as much as I did the many scenes of violent action. 

Covering such a large portion of Tilden’s life means the story is told as a series of incidents as the lawdog and his fellow marshals trackdown various outlaws. There’s even time for Tilden to fall in love. It is also interesting to see how Tilden develops from a young man into a tough lawman and learns how to use guns so efficiently. And, even though the book, at times, feels like a series of vignettes, everything is linked by the outlaw Magruder who always seems one step ahead of Tilden.

Why it has taken me so long to get around to reading this book, as it and the rest of the series have sat on my shelves since they were published, I have no idea. I’m certainly glad I decided at last to pick it up and give it a read. I’m now looking forward to reading the second book, Hell in the Nations, very soon.

American readers can get a copy here
British readers can get a copy here