John Arbter

There are occasions when one happens upon something out of the past. It just happens, often without rhyme or reason. 

So it was that after many years, the joy of Louis L’Amour found its way back. Several months ago, in a doctor’s office, a dog-eared Louie L’Amour paperback waited. The story, ‘Trap of Gold,’ was riveting. 

In it, a lone prospector happens upon an exposed vein of gold precariously positioned at the base of a huge leaning monolith of rock. In less than ten paperback pages, the master storyteller raises the tension of the story as with each strike of the axe, the prospector brings himself closer and closer to being entombed by the massive rock.

No, the end of the story will not be disclosed here.

A couple of months later, upon turning to leave Joe Smith’s Lake Country Locksmith Services, Joe pointed out the take-one/leave-one paperback library shelf he maintains at the shop. There, at eye level, was volume one of L’Amour’s collected short stories. 

Hours of entertainment followed.

After consuming over 500 pages of L’Amour’s tales, a long list of quotes from the stories had been jotted down, some of which are offered below as illustrative of why the late L’Amour is still considered one of the foremost authors of American literature.

The first quality which became apparent was L’Amour’s ability to, in very few words, create a setting which reaches out and grasps the reader. 

 “Cold blew the winds along the canyon, moaning in the cedars, whining softly where the sagebrush grew.” (From ‘The Moon of the Trees Broken by Snow’)

“The land was fire beneath and the sky was brass above…” (from ‘The Strong Shall Live’)

“So the good, rich smell of coffee permeated the room with its friendly sense of well-being and comfort.” (from ‘Let the Cards Decide’)

“The prairie and the sky had a way of trimming folks down to size, or changing them to giants to whom nothing seemed impossible.” (from ‘War Party’)

It is certainly common for characters in L’Amour’s stories to, at some point, be on a journey. The journey might be the story itself, or just adjunct to the storyline, but regardless, the concept of journeying was central to most all of his stories.

“No rider of the desert must see a man to know him, for it is enough to follow his trail.” (from ‘Dutchman’s Flat’)

“You’ve got to see country in more than one light to get the lay of it.” (from ‘Booty for a Badman’)

“… a man riding lonesome country gets so he can pick up anything strange to it.” (from ‘Booty for a Badman’)

“His eyes had grown old in the reading of trail sign and the motives of men – and women.” (from ‘One for the Pot’)

Many of L’Amour’s stories have a female presence, and those characters most usually play an impactful role in the story. There is no doubt that the author understood the weighty, if understated, role played by the fairer sex.

As recounted in ‘Let the Cards Decide,’ “….When she moved it was to unheard music, and when she smiled, it was for you alone, and with each smile she seemed to give you something intimate, something personal.”

Of course, the western genre is dominated by men. While L’Amour could create tall-riding straight-shooters as well as dastardly villains, most of his characters are closer to real life. Fallible men, shaped by challenging histories. There are plenty of villains, but more commonly are just that, common men in extraordinary circumstances.

“It is a rare thing to find a man who will stand square on what he believes, whether it is making a rule or an exception to it.” (from ‘End of the Drive’)

“Now when a man says that he can do anything, it is a safe bet he can do nothing, or at least, that he can do nothing well.” (from ‘The One for the Mojave Kid’)

“Some men are born to evil. And such a one was the Mojave Kid. Now I’m not saying that environment doesn’t have its influence, but some men are born with twisted minds just as some are born with crooked teeth.”  (from ‘The One for the Mojave Kid’)

“It is neither size nor age that makes a man, Mr. Reyerson, but something he has inside.” (from ‘War Party’)

L’Amour usually established an ethos for his main characters, marked by an efficient use of language. The unnamed survivor of ‘The Skull and the Arrow’ was described as follows: 

“This time he was finished. There was no going back. His enemies were sure he was dead, and his friends would accept it as true. So he was free … yet in freedom there is not always contentment.”

And from ‘Elisha Comes to Red Horse,’ 

“… when a man lives out his life under the sun and the stars, half the time riding alone over mountains and deserts, then he usually has a religion although it may not be of the usual variety.”

The 35 stories in volume one of his collected short stories, the Frontier Stories, all take place ‘out west.’ Given L’Amour’s personal travels throughout the west, it could be practically anywhere. That is part of his magic. 

Everyone has been, figuratively, to the small town of Red Horse. As explained in ‘Elisha Comes to Red Horse,’ 

“In Red Horse we weren’t used to distinguished visitors. It was out of the way, back in the hills, off the main roads east and west. Nobody ever came to Red Horse, unless they were coming to Red Horse.”

In places like Red Horse, L’Amour knit stories of men overcoming circumstances against most odds. He wrote in a manner which was exciting, suspenseful, and never burdensome. 

An exchange between Mike Hamlin and Jim Rossiter in ‘Beyond the Chaparral’ exemplified L’Amour’s technique:

“You never said you could shoot like that, Jim.”

“In a lifetime, Mike, a man does many things.”

On to volume two.