Friends

by Charles Hackenberry

Overview

Back in the winter of ’77 I was deputying up in Two Scalp, Dakota Territory; waiting for my friend Clete Shannon—who was the Sheriff there at the time—to say the word for us to quit our jobs and head south…Being Clete’s deputy give me mighty little to do but think things over, morning or night. Two Scalp’s deader’n a sucker in a sandstorm.

This lazy peace would not last.

Willie Goodwin had seen a lot of life; he knew how the death wind could blow into a man’s life on a clear sunny day without a sip of warning. He thought he knew how treacherous life could be…that’s why he drank.

When Nell Larson complained that someone was spooking her cattle late at night, neither Willie nor Clete recognized the danger….When Nell’s cabin was burned and Nell murdered, and when Clete was shot by the same faceless enemy, Willie saddled his horse and went looking for justice and for the answer to the puzzle of why these horrible crimes were committed.

Willie’s manhunt would become an odyssey of death and vengeance. It would stretch over mountains, rivers and plains; it would take him through towns, ranches and farms. Along the way, Willie Goodwin would have to decide if friendship was stronger than honor or desire. Willie Goodwin was a simple man with some hard choices…

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781590773406
Publisher:	M. Evans & Company
Publication date:	05/01/2014
Series:	Evans Novel of the West Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	244
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Charles Hackenberry was a professor of English at Penn State University. He wrote numerous scholarly articles in addition to his novels Friends and I Rode with Jesse James.

Editorial Reviews

Willie Goodwin, the hero of this first-rate debut, is getting old. He'd like nothing better than to sit back, drink and reminisce with his friend Clete Shannon. But Clete, no spring chicken himself, is sheriff of the Dakota Territory town of Two Scalp and needs Willie's help as his deputy. A ruthless killer is on the loose in the spring of 1877, and when he kills Jesse and Nell McLeod by setting fire to their home, Willie and Clete begin a relentless journey to track down the perpetrator and exact rough justice. Willie's salty first-person account of the two tired lawmen's pursuit is interspersed with short, taut third-person passages depicting the killer as a malevolent force of nature whom civilized society must halt if balance is to be restored. The story is expertly and methodically plotted without being mechanical. Willie and Clete, as they seek retribution, are as driven as the man they hunt. A twist ending, which explains the psychopath's actions with references to another long-dead badman and an incestuous relationship, surprises and satisfies with psychologizing that gives the book a modern feel without betraying its western sensibility. While the story ends with Willie again hoping for retirement, readers may very well want Clete and his erstwhile deputy to saddle up at least one more time. (July)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This unusual first novel is a thoughtful study of friendship and character as well as the suspenseful chase of a brutal and sadistic killer across Dakota Territory in 1877. Sheriff Clete Shannon of Two Scalp pursues the killer with his less-than-perfect deputy, Willie Goodwin, who is 50 years old, a drinker, and a poor shot. However, he is a good friend. During the hazardous hunt, a variety of characters turn up, all of whom are worth the reader's careful attention. Willie, who narrates the story, has a picaresque, colloquial Texas style, flavored with appreciation of the Dakota landscape and considerable profanity and obscenity that are common to most of the characters. There's a lot of graphic sex, too. Hackenberry has a gift for the genre; a writer to watch.-- Sister Avila, Acad. of Holy Angels, Minneapolis

Library Journal