He rode into the Fort a renegade. When he left, his name was legend!

I’ve never been drawn to Westerns. That goes for the old Roy Rodgers shows as much as the John Wayne films. It also goes for Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour novels. The minor dabbling I’ve done in years past has always seemed to suggest that Westerns share the same few, dusty plots refurbished with new names and locations.

As I was traveling through Wyoming this past week, though, I thought to myself: “If I’m ever going to read and enjoy a true Western novel from cover to cover, it’s now or never.” I took the shot this time with a Louis L’Amour and by the end was glad I did.

To be perfectly blunt, nothing in this book surprised me (which itself was no surprise!). Kilrone contained pretty much everything that I’d expect in a Western novel: cowboys and Indians, lying and cheating, strangers and lovers, chases and shootouts.

Major Frank Paddock faces an unhappy reunion in the Western territories with Barnes Kilrone, a fellow officer from their years in Paris where love for the same girl had left between them some bad blood. When Kilrone rides into the fort wounded and warning of an attack threatened in a region outside the fort, Major Paddock organizes a posse to hunt down the Indian offenders. Kilrone stays back with Paddock’s wife and doctor friend to heal from his own wounds. Through the process, those left in town realize that the threatened attack is actually a ruse meant to draw the men away, leaving the town open for attack from another source. The question on everyone’s mind, however, is how the Native American, Medicine Dog, knew to use such a strategy and where his collection of warriors got their guns.

While the relational tension that started this book promised some depth to the characters, it ended up being just a foil with nothing really to do with the story as a whole. Nothing nefarious happens between the main characters, though a love story does come about in other ways. I wasn’t invested in any of the characters to care too much about that, sadly.

The side story of Medicine Dog and his relationship to Iron Dave reminded me a lot of the plot behind the alternative-history novel, Apacheria. In both, the goal was for the countless bands of Indians to fight together under a single banner against the white invaders, crushing them before they gained a foothold in the West, thereby maintaining their homeland as a single unit instead of losing it through their self-imposed separation, small battle by small battle. Likening Medicine Dog to a Genghis Khan-type leader was an intriguing plotline.

The book ends with a heavy dose of Western Justice, a nice satisfying conclusion that’s probably the reason I was glad to have read it. I didn’t love the book so much that I simply can’t wait to get my hands on another L’Amour, but I was entertained enough to plan packing another Western for my next trip West. Louis L’Amour will probably always make the cut, at least until he delivers something that disappoints.

©2023 E.T.

Read More from Louis L’Amour:

• Dead Man’s Trail (1947)
• Kilrone (1966)
• Last of the Breed (1986)
• The Education of a Wandering Man (1989)
• Law of the Desert Born: A Graphic Novel (2013)