I like Westerns in which an old pro – be he cowboy or lawman – is called out of retirement to perform a job only he can do. There’s always something special about the situation that calls for his skill or experience. It’s like a good Howard Hawks Western movie: one that puts an emphasis on professionalism, and defines a man by what he does rather than by what he says he can do.
Johnny D. Boggs’ protagonist in WALK PROUD, STAND TALL is Lin Garrett, a forgotten lawman who, in old age, has fallen on hard times. He was once an Arizona legend – or nearly so –, but now that it’s 1913, hardly anyone remembers him.
In fact, when his name is mentioned, listeners look confused and comment that they thought his first name was Pat. No, this is the other Garrett: the one who did his job and didn’t hire someone to ghostwrite a book about it.
Lin travels by riding the rails and one day, he finds a brand-new automobile parked at the train station. A visitor to town assumes Lin is a taxi driver and insists on a ride. Garrett decides to “borrow” the car just long enough to drive the stranger where he wants to go and collect a $3 fee. That’s how bad things have gotten.
Instead, Lin finds himself in a hospital and home for the indigent where he becomes reacquainted with his former deputy Randolph Corbett. The two old-timers spend their days together, wandering into town for a drink or two usually paid for by Ol’ Corb’s long, windy tales of the old days spun out for visiting dudes and their families. Even by 1913, the West recognized that its future was in tourism.
Then, after an incarceration of 25 years, outlaw Ollie Sinclair is released from prison and no sooner does he hit the streets than he recruits his brother, an old friend and some young hotheads to form a new gang, and they immediately rob a train. Lin, Corb and Ollie have a long history together, sometimes smooth and sometimes not so much. In honest work, they rode together and even after Sinclair turned outlaw the three shared friends and adventures.
Now for a variety of personal and professional reasons, Lin decides he wants to be the one to bring Ollie back in. Garrett put him in prison 25 years ago. He knows the aging bad man, knows how he thinks and what his escape path is likely to be. Corbett refuses to be left behind, so he and Lin reform their old partnership and prepare to light out. They are soon joined, against their wills, by Evan Paine, a low-level local lawman who thinks capturing the notorious Ollie Sinclair is just the thing to get him elected sheriff, and the trio sets off.
Boggs is one of the best Western writers around and if Westerns sold well enough to get some attention, he’d be better known than he is. His books are well-told standalone novels. His attention to historical detail is strong without being intrusive. I especially like the way he uses universal Western legend to add some authenticity to the narrative.
At one point, someone tells the story of the time Ollie Sinclair gave $600 to a widow so she could pay off the mortgage on her farm, insisting that when the banker showed up the next day, she should get a receipt. Ollie leaves the premises, the banker rides up, he gets his money and the widow gets her receipt. Then, on the way back to town, Ollie sticks up the banker and steals the $600. A listener to the tale says he thought that was Jesse James or some other outlaw. It’s probably a rural legend, but it adds an aura of the real West – the real legendary West – to the book.
WALK PROUD, STAND TALL is a good read, one of those books that seem to be telling the real story behind the dime novels. You won’t go wrong with this one. –Doug Bentin
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