TRAGG'S CHOICE

 

TRAGG’S CHOICE
By Clifton Adams
Tandem, 1975
First published in 1969
Spur Award Winner for Best Western Novel, 1969

For ten years, Owen Tragg lived on his reputation as a hero – exploited by a slick showman who dressed him up in fringed and beaded buckskin and billed him as ‘the man who killed Jody Barker’.

When the act finally folded, Tragg was relieved. But before he could head for El Paso to apply for a deputy’s job, he had some unpleasant business to take care of at Boser’s Creek. There, Jody Barker’s widow waited for him; and there, by a twist of fate that had sent a half-starved sodbuster on a killing spree, Tragg the man was forced to separate himself from Tragg the legend.

He was all that stood between two people and death.

There are four lead characters in this suspense filled book. They all meet on a stagecoach journey. The author fleshes them out superbly, filling in their backgrounds and their dreams for the future. Guilt and greed drive most of them. Each takes centre stage at different points in the book. The titular character is kept mostly in the background for the first half of the story.

I found it fascinating to watch how Morrasey, a down on his luck sodbuster, desperate for something more in his life, becomes a merciless killer. The story begins with him watching a man die, which is right up there with the best opening scenes to a book I’ve ever read. Gripping indeed.

Jessie Ross is the girl who is intent on turning in her dying outlaw boyfriend for the bounty on him. Then there’s Callahan, a bounty hunter who is eager to get part of that reward, and soon has the opportunity to add to that money when he’s hired to kill one of the other three.

Tragg really doesn’t want to get involved with any of them, but fate has other plans and he finds himself wearing a deputy’s star and is sent out to bring in Morrasey. This supposedly simple task is complicated by the involvement of a revenge hungry lynch mob.

Clifton Adams brings all his characters together for a nail-biting final confrontation from which I began to think none of them would survive. The book has a noir feel at times which adds a hard edge to the storyline. 

This is a book that should satisfy all readers of westerns as Clifton Adams proves once again why his work is held in such high regard. The fact that it won a Spur Award should be enough to recommend it to those who’ve yet to read it without my encouragement. Tragg’s Choice really is a terrific western read. 

Note of interest. Tragg’s Choice was first published in Great Britain in 1970 under the title of Dude Sheriff by Robert Hale & Company. 

Street & Smith's WESTERN ADVENTURE - Feb. 1957

 

Street & Smith’s WESTERN ADVENTURE
British Edition, February 1957, Vol. 1, No. 8
Cover art by H.W. Scott

As far as I can tell, most, if not all, the stories published in the 43 issues of the British pulp Street & Smith’s Western Adventure were originally published in the American pulp Street & Smith’s Western Story, of which there were over 2,000 editions. 

The cover art was altered a bit for the British pulp but this is restricted to the text so a new title could be incorporated. I’ve included an image of the original at the end of this review, with a list of the story titles and notes on where they were first published – as you’ll see they don’t all come from a single issue of Western Story.

All of the yarns in the February 1957 edition are short stories, all seven or eight pages in length. Also mixed in are five columns; Where to Go and How to Get There by John North, Mines and Mining by J.A. Thompson, Range Savvy by H. Fredric Young, Guns and Gunners by Phil Sharpe, The Roundup – author unknown. 

The opening story is Doomed Cargo by Norman A. Fox. This is a tale about a young riverboat deck sweeper who learns how to stand-up for himself when he finds the courage and initiative, he didn’t know he had, to thwart an attempt to steal the riverboat’s cargo and kill everyone onboard. I’ve only read a couple of other stories by Fox, and this is the most enjoyable so far, perhaps because I like riverboat tales.  

Hot-Lead Headliners by John Colohan is next. I’ve not read anything by him before so was interested to sample his work. The story involved committing murder to cover up a previous killing. A drunk newspaper man overhears the bad guys plotting this new assassination attempt and knows he must do something to stop it happening. How he does this adds intrigue to the tale. Colohan also has a neat surprise waiting to be revealed at the end. Colohan’s tale proved to be a fun read. 

Track Treachery by E.C. Lincoln is set in modern times and is about horse racing. Why would a leading horse suddenly turn and head to the side of the track and thus lose the race? I was intrigued enough to want to know the answer to that question so I struggled through the story to find out. The writing style didn’t click with me and I very nearly gave up with it. I probably would have done so had it been any longer. 

After the disappointing pervious story, I was hoping that Murder Gun by B. Bristow Green would be better and I got my wish. This is a bank robbery tale where an innocent stranger to town gets accused of being one of the hold-up men. His capture leads to a make-shift court being set up that provides some tense scenes and a neat twist. I’ve never read anything by B. Bristow Green before and this story left me eager to explore more of his work.  

Easy Does It by C.K. Shaw is the first of three stories she wrote that featured Windy Bill Wicks. I’ve seen a note saying that this tale was originally published as East Does It, but I think the U.K. title is correct as Wicks is told to take things easy more than once. In fact, the opening words are “Easy Windy.” The story is written in the first person and involves two sets of ranch hands at loggerheads with each other over a couple of slashed saddles and a knife that is found beside them. Of course, the knife owner says it wasn’t him and the knife was stolen. Proving this is what the story is about. This was another difficult to read tale due to its old-fashioned style. It was an ok story but didn’t make me want to read the other Windy Bill tales or any more of Chloe Kathleen Shaw work.

The next story was much better than the previous one. White Water Run by Hugh B. Cave is about a Mountie tracking down a murderer. It contains some gripping scenes of canoe travel through treacherous waters, surprises and a neat twist to the end. This was by far my favourite story in this issue of Western Adventure. 

The final tale is Dead Man’s Horse by J. Lane Linklater in which a man has to make a choice of whether to hinder or help the law. Whichever way he chooses will mean a change to the way of life he has known which sees his word ruling the lives of those that live in and near Quiet Gulch. People can be safe there, whether good or bad as long as there aren’t any killings. Then a body is found… Linklater’s story is fast-paced and gripping and even though events play out as I expected I still found it to be a fun read.

For me, this issue of Western Adventure proved to be a patchy read in terms of quality of storytelling but the good far outweighed the bad. I’d only read stories by one of the authors before (Norman A. Fox) and have now added a couple more authors to my want to read more of list. 

Doomed Cargo by Norman A. Fox – originally published in Street & Smith’s Western Story, January 1941

Hot-Lead Headlines by John Colohan – original publication unknown

Track Treachery by E.C. Lincoln – originally published in Street & Smith’s Western Story, January 1941

Murder Gun by B. Bristow Green – originally published in Street & Smith’s Western Story, December 1942

Easy Does It by C.K. Shaw – Street & Smith’s Western Story, December 1942 

White Water Run by Hugh B. Cave – originally published in Street & Smith’s Western Story, February 1942

Dead Man’s Horse by J. Lane Linklater – originally published in Street & Smith’s Western Story, February 1942

THE LONESOME DEATH OF JOE SAVAGE

 

THE LONESOME DEATH OF JOE SAVAGE
By C.J. Sommers
Cover Art by Prieto Muriana
Robert Hale, November 2012

A sense of family duty led Tracy Keyes to search for his cousin, the notorious Wyoming bad man, Joe Savage. His mother wished to know if he was dead or alive – and so did half the lawmen and bounty hunters in the North County.

Tracy hadn’t seen Savage since they were boys and wasn’t sure he’d even recognize his criminal cousin if they met face to face. Carrying the onus of being related to the infamous Savage made things no easier for him, nor did the bounty hunters who dogged his trail, believing that Tracy could lead them to the outlaw. By the end of the long journey, Tracy was convinced that he was only following Joe Savage into his own grave….

C.J. Sommers doesn’t believe in giving his hero an easy time of it. Tracy will be on the wrong end of fists and have plenty of lead slung at him. He soon realizes he can’t trust anyone, and nearly everyone he meets tells him Savage is dead, and good riddance. If he is dead, then where is his grave? This question, and plenty of others such as who owns the land that Savage had bought now that he is dead add some strong mystery elements to this fast-moving tale. It's difficult to say anything else about the plot without including spoilers. 

There’s not as much action in this book as others I have read by this author, but it really doesn’t need it as it’s Tracy’s attempts to unravel the mysteries he’s presented with that easily kept my attention, so much so that I hadn’t realized there hadn’t been as much gunplay as I might have expected until I thought about it. 

I’ve read quite a few Black Horse Westerns written by C.J. Sommers and have found them all to be gripping reads and The Lonesome Death of Joe Savage also falls into that category. C.J. Sommers is just one of three pseudonyms Paul Lederer used for his BHWs; the other two pen-names being Logan Winters and Owen G. Irons and I’ve read many of his stories under those names too and I have yet to be disappointed by any of his books. Lederer didn’t just write westerns for Robert Hale Ltd., he also wrote for some of the American publishers too under a variety of names.

American readers can get a copy here.

UK readers can get a copy here.