Author Clifton Adams lived a short life, born in Oklahoma in December 1, 1919 and passing away because of a heart attack in San Francisco on October 7, 1971. Over that period, he wrote some forty plus novels and a hundred-twenty-five short stories. He had several of his books made into films, this 1963 novel among them. I reported on it this past Tuesday for Todd Mason. I also did a post on a book with one of his short stories here.
Kiowa Jones was a drifter. A cowhand, he’d had a fiddle-foot moment and decided to move on. When he comes across the plague camp, he made the mistake of stopping. Marshall Duncan was escorting three men scheduled for hanging at Fort Smith, two murderers and a smuggler. The Marshall and the smuggler had the pox, both near death.
The Marshall convinces Kiowa to take them on, shortly before his death and the smuggler’s, to Fort Smith.
One killer is Bobby Jack Wilkes, a Billy The Kid wannabe, a hired assassin reputed to have killed twenty, twenty-five men, loud-mouthed, vain, and cocksure. The second was Skoda, a gypsy who’d married a woman half his age and in a moment of rage, stabbed her while she was flaunting her infidelities. Skoda was resigned to his death, the Tarot cards said it. Not so the kid. Prepared for such an occurrence, he’d put word out that he’d double the thousand dollar reward on his head to anybody that set him free.
It was a long ride across the prairie to Fort Smith and more than bounty hunters were looking for them. An incident with a pair of them, rescued by a young teacher, Amilia 
Rathmore, on her way to a job in the Cherokee Nation. A vengeful family that want Wilkes for a far different reason an a couple of cowpokes that see easy money.
Although he has no desire for the bounty on Wilkes’ head, he is briefly tempted by the double offer, causing even more consternation in his basically honest soul.
Along the way, Kiowa and Amilia grow close, much to Kiowa’s consternation and against his will.
Kind of liked this one, made into a TV pilot in 1966 that wasn’t picked up.
Patti is on vacation this week, so Todd Mason is doing the honors over at SWEET FREEDOM.
Not The Baseball Pitcher 
Shucks, I think it would’ve made a neat TV series.
Agreed, Richard. It was in the last days of western television, though, Gunsmoke and Bonanza maybe the only ones left from the heydays of the late fifties.
Thanks Randy, great to have the book and movie adaptations covered in the same week again. I’ve not read anything by Adams – did he write mainly in the Western genre? It’s an area I know little about outside of those turned into movies,
Adams wrote mostly westerns, at least in novel form. He did have a couple of crime novels, though, and one is on its way here, likely to turn up some time on Forgotten Books.
Really look forward to hearing about that one Randy – cheers.
I love Clifton Adams, one of my favorite writers. This one is still on my To Find list.
Sounds like some interesting similarities with Lonesome Dove. Tied in with Fort Smith is designed to pique my interest. I don’t think I’ve read anything by him
I too read the novel and saw the movie at about the same time and enjoyed both of them a great deal. Clifton Adams at his best is very good indeed and I’ve read many of his novels under various names. I wasn’t aware that the TV movie was intended to be a pilot. I know that was common for the time but it is hard to see how they could have made the pivot to a series. The casting was excellent from top to bottom. Horton and Baker were quite good and Sal Mineo was great as the ruthless killer.