The Graywolf Annual Four: Short Stories by Men ed. by Scott Walker

Abstract

372 Western American Literature Once aLegend. By TackCummings. (NewYork: Walker and Company, 1987. 182 pages, $16.95.) “It was tough, lusting after the wife of the man who’d been my idol.” This observation by Drew Hardin, 25-year-old naive narrator of this formula West­ ern, reveals both the principal focus of this novel and its often wooden diction. Hardin rides into Staffold, Arizona, in 1915 to meet legendary manhunter Frank Ladd, whose fame rests on his capture of railroad robber Ike Tolbert. Tolbert has just been released from his 20-year prison sentence and has imme­ diately murdered his judge. Ladd, learning of Tolbert’snew crime the very day young Hardin arrives, determines to capture Tolbert again. Drew hopes to witness this second capture, especially when he sees Lola, Ladd’s 35-year-old wife of “well-formed figure” who once was a trick-shot artist. The trio head north, catch up with Tolbert, who then escapes through a cave filled with “bat pee,” and encounter Indians before finding their man in Colorado. Finally old Ladd outwits a modern young sheriff and manages, with the help of Lola (“Little Sure Shot”) on two dramatic occasions—well, you can imagine the outcome. Although the author of five other novels, Cummings falters here. The too obviousplot and the shallow characterizations preclude even enough credibility for sheer escapism. Drew Hardin knows only what he has read from books and expresses his learning woodenly: “I read a book about how mercenary women are.” He expresses vaguely his disillusionment with his hero: “He had made some mistakes in judgment that had had their effects.” Lola says to an Indian of sixth-grade education: “You must be a matriarchal society.” Yet Lola is potentially the most interesting character; all the action swirls around her. In short, this $16.95 progeny of powder-burners, despite an effective chase scene in the penultimate chapter, fizzles. The effect of change in the West is an old theme, seen in works as various as Frederic Remington’spainting The Fall of the Cowboy and Elmer Kelton’s most recent novel. If you want to see this theme handled with skill that evokes real interest in characters and actions, ignore this mediocre formula Western and read instead Kelton’s The Man Who Rode Midnight. BOB J. FRYE Texas Christian University The Graywolf Annual Four: Short Stories by Men. Edited by Scott Walker. (Saint Paul: Graywolf Press, 1988. 226 pages, $7.50.) This volume of thirteen stories proves a welcome addition to Graywolf Press’sreputation for handsomely published and easily affordable samplings of noteworthy new fiction. Like its fine companion volume, The GraywolfAnnual Two: Short Stories by Women, almost all of the stories in this fourth annual have been previously published in magazines or collections. Reviews 373 Richard Ford’s “Great Falls” and Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Car­ ried” are the best examples of the understatement and gentle insight that run throughout most of the tales in this collection. Ford’snarrator recallshis experi­ ences as an adolescent boy watching through a series of ambiguous episodes the break-up of his parents’marriage. Ford’s achievement is that he manages to identify clearly and simply the subtle and sudden forces that can change the course of a life forever. O’Brien’s story depicts a platoon of young soldiers in Vietnam “humping” a burdensome load of physical and emotional baggage across mountains, through jungles and into ambushes, stopping only to joke away their fears or dream of loves left behind. Ultimately, the objects carried in their packs become symbols of the men themselves, as their fading photo­ graphs and assortments of weaponry become physical manifestations of their hopes, horror and courage. Other stories, such as William Kittredge’s “Phantom Silver,” are more boldly imaginative in their approach and evocative in their imagery. Kittredge transforms the legendary figure of a Lone-Ranger-type Western hero from a rescuer of the innocents into an aging, incestuous shell of a man, mutilated in form, whose silver bullets fire impotently into the onrushing tide of the Pacific Ocean near San Francisco. Frederick Busch’s “Dog Song” similarly employs brutal, almost surrealistic images in...