Richard Matheson is a remarkably talented writer who’s written novels , short stories, did television(Twilight Zone and a nifty little movie directed by a young Spielberg, Duel), there is no limit to his talents and he’s certainly not forgotten. He’s perhaps best known for his novels I Am Legend(made into three decidedly inferior movies) and The Incredible Shrinking Man(made into a decent fifties movie and I’ve heard scary rumors about an Eddie Murphy remake, though not recently). THE GUN FIGHT is a western and was recommended to me on the Goodreads website. I’d never read any of his westerns before, a fact I’m rectifying as quickly as possible.
John Denton is a retired Texas Ranger who hung up his guns after tracking down a gang of bank robbers who’d killed a teller and seriously wounded another, killing them all three in a shootout. Two of the three were the sons of the third, one hardly more than a boy. It got to Denton and he promised his wife he’d quit, buying a small ranch near Kellville, Texas.
Even after eight years, he’s still a legend to all the young in town.
It started oddly enough when Denton and a hand were working on the ranch and young Robby Coles arrives to confront the ex-ranger about bothering his fiance. Denton doesn’t have any idea what he’s going on about and ends up punching the young man to calm him down.
What had happened is the girl mentioned, sixteen year old Louisa Harper, was trying to make the boy jealous and said Denton had tried to arrange a meeting. That’s all. She DID have harmless fantasies about the handsome Ranger saving her from death on a runaway horse though.
Robby Coles took it all seriously and had the confrontation.
That’s when the gossiping started and, as gossip usually does, grows in the telling. Coles’ father, a proud old man, starts pushing his son to defend his fiance’s honor and Louisa’s old maid aunt wants something done. It seemed both of them were more worried about how it would reflect on them than how it might affect the lives of the two young people.
The more Denton tries to defuse things, the worse they become. Townspeople start to speculate he is a coward. Louisa is too scared of her domineering aunt to tell the truth until too late. Then it’s dismissed as “too late.”
Three days after it started the two men found themselves facing each other in the middle of town, Denton wondering how all this could be happening, Robby scared he was going to die, two really bitter old people watching the outcome.
Here is a tale of allowing vanity, on both sides, to prevail over reason. A really fine western and set to have a new paperback edition in early November(the cover pictured here is for the new book).
It’s quite clear looking at the slip cover how well Matheson is thought of by fellow writers. There are blurbs from the likes of Stephen King, Ed Gorman, Harlan Ellison, Joe R. Lansdale, and Loren D. Estleman. I’m sure he’s thought of as well by us readers.
These writers who can write any genre amaze me.
I didn’t know about this book. I definitely want to get it. I’ve enjoyed a lot of Matheson’s work.
Man, I got to track this down.
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Hi, Randy. Just stumbled across this older post, and remembered our discussion of I AM OMEGA. It’s great to see someone focusing on Matheson’s lesser-known Westerns, which not only are excellent books in their own right, but also show his tremendous versatility. At one point he had hopes of getting his first published Western, JOURNAL OF THE GUN YEARS, into the hands of Martin Scorsese, who was reportedly thinking of making a stab in that genre. I don’t know if Scorsese ever saw the book, but it’s a shame he never filmed it, because I think it would have been right up his alley. Matheson adapted it for a miniseries that was to have been directed by his longtime collaborator, Dan Curtis, but sadly the project fell through. He also wrote episodes of several Western series, either alone (LAWMAN, CHEYENNE) or in collaboration with his friend Charles Beaumont (BUCKSKIN, WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE, HAVE GUN—WILL TRAVEL). Interestingly, two of his six LAWMAN episodes were based, uncredited, on hitherto unsold stories later published in his collection BY THE GUN. By the way, if you’re interested, RICHARD MATHESON ON SCREEN has been tentatively set for an early-October publication by McFarland.
Thanks, Bradley. Here’s another post on Matheson’s westerns:
http://randall120.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/three-westerns-by-matheson
They cover a couple you mentioned.
Matheson had an uncanny ability to spin tension out in his teleplays. You probably remember his “Trilogy of Terror,” in which Karen Black is menaced by a knife-wielding Zuni fetish doll, and “Duel.” A short story of his, called “Crickets” (I think — it’s in his “Shock II” collection), is one of the creepiest short stories ever.