The Best of the West III – short stories which inspired the film world. This is a paperback I picked up out of the library on a lark. I like the western tradition of descriptive language and colorful characters but ultimately find the western's limited sense of plot to be too predictable to be truly riveting. Needless to say I didn't finish the whole thing, but this little gem of a story definitely stood out from the rest.

Raiders Die Hard was written in 1952, back when Country was what existed beyond your backyard and Western was just a fun form of entertainment rather than a lame obese combatant in the culture wars. Raiders is not the best story I've ever read. The last few pages are a bit maudlin. I like what Cunningham does with the richochette bullets spraying slivers of lead everywhere, yet on the whole the big gunfight at the end is not nearly as visceral as if feels it should be. Yet. Something has gotten me writing, so where has Cunningham succeeded where so many other stories in the collection have failed tonight?

For one thing, it's nice to read a story where the characters have a sense of existing outside of themselves, where everyone is not a brooding introvert – as happens far too often in modern fiction. There is a town. The people in town care about what other people in town are thinking and doing. They make life hell for each other - just like real people. And surprise, they're not all cardboard cutouts either. Judge Ogilvie (yes, I hated the name until I said it a loud and recognized it from the past. Ogglevee – you don't come across names like that anymore) he is a strange hero for a western in that he actually strikes the reader as a bit of a dandy. He grows his own roses and his left arm is withered and twisted. Of course, we eventually learn that the deformity came from fighting rebels in the Civil War and that he is actually a crack shot with a side arm, yadda yadda yadda, yet leading up to that point it is quite a surprise choice.

Next out of the sage brush rides suspense and sympathy - for a judge no less. Ogilvie's predicament made me think of a childhood friend whose father was a judge and who lived with enough firearms in his house to stock a banana republic (an actual banana republic, not the clothing store). It seemed a bit loony at the time, but with the view from behind a gavel (which in this story's case is a simple carpenter's hammer, possibly symbolizing just how crude and rudimentary frontier justice can be) it is easily understood. Ogilvie isn't just holding the fate of one man in his hands while trying to pass judgment on a murder case, he is holding the fate of half the town, the love of his ex-fiancee, her blow-hard boyfriend, and ultimately himself. He is just as much on trial as the defendant. At one great moment Ogilvie is even tempted to 'come to the dark side' and extract his vengeance through a subjective interpretation of the law. This is the sort of thing that provides a story with pull, flying the reader ahead of his eyes rather than dragging him through the pages. The drive of Raiders is not about what happens or what pretty word pictures a writer can whip up but that age old desire to see know what will happen next and see how the characters will resolve the dilemma at hand. It puts you in many places and leaves you powerless but to wonder what you would do if placed in the judge's seat, the widow's, the killers, or even the love torn fiancee.

To think all that once came from a dime store novel. That's a pretty good 10 cent investment.