Buckskin Run [Paperback]

Here you'll find tales of cattle and cowboys, gold and greed, rewards and revenge, and country as wide open and raw as the Arizona dessert or the great Rocky Mountains. In this collection of eight short stories the world's best selling writer of westerns takes the reader back to the raw boned times of leather, bullets, and ten gallon hats. It was a time when men were men and anything that moved was a target. It was a time when the law reigned supreme at least, that is, till it got in the way of the business at hand. It was a time when good ranch land was as valuable as gold and equally fought over. It was the time of the cowboy.

As fans all around the world already know, Louis L'Amour brings these rough times to life with his stories. No one spins a tale quite like he does. The eight stories here are prime examples of L'Amour at his best. Between each story L'Amour has included historical notes which, while not exactly related to the stories in any particular way, help to bring a deeper sense of reality to the anthology.

Buckskin Run is a fantastic collection of gritty western yarns and it's a great action packed read from the first page to the last.

"Buckskin Run" is a collection of Louis L'Amour short stories written for Western pulp magazines in the years just before his star rose with the publication of "Hondo." It's a samey collection of yarns featuring mysterious solitary cowboys who wander into unknown places full of whispers and true-hearted women; entertaining enough when not read all at once.

"The Ghosts Of Buckskin Run" is the first and longest tale, of one Rod Morgan who finds himself occupying a spot of land believed by some to be haunted and by others to hold $120,000 in gold. Of all the stories, it seems the most likely candidate for a novel, having some engaging characters, complex villains, and a love story that isn't automatic, but like most of the other stories, it feels too rushed, as if L'Amour knows his readers showed up for a gunfight and feels under an obligation to provide.

Other tales feature a cowboy who gets ambushed ("dry-gulched") while bringing calico for his girl and a group of gold prospectors who have to fight off Indians and discover there is a traitor in their midst. Designing women are at work in two stories, neither of which sticks out as anything special.

Though he did better with the space and room of a novel, L'Amour was an avid short story writer, and there are three stories here that show he had the touch for it:

"Jackson Of Horntown" is a nice character piece featuring the last surviving member of a gang of outlaws, an aging lawmen sent to arrest him, and a neglected burro which brings them together. Among other things, it is a nice display of L'Amour's nature-writing, as the two men and the old burro wander through a cruel blizzard.

"Squatters Of The Lonetree" is a morality play about a rancher who doesn't want to share his land with a hog farmer but can't quite get him to skedaddle. It's an entertaining story with more than a little humor in depicting the rancher's continued frustration and no real bad guys, and definitely shows L'Amour capable of stretching within his Western-writing framework.

Finally, there's "Down The Pogonip Trail," the best in the book. A struggling cowboy sets on getting a wanted man for the reward money, only the wanted man gets him first, and in the process makes him question his priorities. When is money worth taking a man's life, even one who just stole your provisions? L'Amour's good-hearted tale ends on a nicely ambiguous note, one that lingers.

Not much else here does linger, especially small historical notes about unrelated matters L'Amour inserted between the tales when the collection was published in 1981. This is L'Amour for people after a quick fix. Long on action, short on story, "Buckskin Run" feels more like a sprint.

This order was received in excellent timing and in good condition. There were two "calendars" (books that matched the collection) that were unuseable and should not have been counted as part of the collection, but other than that we have no complaints.

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