Review

Thanks to my Dad, I grew up besotted with Westerns.  There is something about the open range, a man on a horse with a Henry rifle at his side, one who straddles the thin line between justice and vigilante actions that captures my heart.  You just don’t mess with a man and his horse, or his hat, or his gun, or his family; it is that simple: just ride on by.  In a well-written story of the struggle to live a morally righteous life, Lewis has created the perfect character in Wes Bracken.  Wes is trying to build something out of nothing, a future for his sons in Lincoln County, New Mexico.  He may be the one honest man in Lincoln County.

Unfortunately, at the same time, the law is struggling to survive as well.  Bracken works hard to not take a side in the battle occurring in town between the powerful politically motivated store owners who have manipulated both sides of the law, only to find himself threatened by both sides.  Protecting his family has to take first priority over building up his horse ranch.  Teaching his wife to shoot is just one of the items on his long list of chores.

Lewis provides the entire picture.  There are the scorching hot summers, with dust flying in your face as you exercise the horses and make quarterly visits to the general store, while at night worrying about the political climate along with the criminals that are moving into the area.  The freezing winters when you pray for the next sunny day to come quickly so that you can get the horses a little exercise and are forced to patrol the buildings at night to check for bad guys wanting to kill you and your family, stopping only to stomp your feet in an effort to get relief from the cold.  The widow whose husband is killed, cattle are stolen, and is left to provide for her six children are all just part of the story Lewis weaves.  You cannot go wrong reading this novel. 

This is definitely an edge-of-the-seat read as the reader is pulled into listening carefully for any sound outside the house that might indicate Wes and his family won’t survive the attack.  The Western genre should be proud to include this novel in its list of the best, right alongside Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey.