Sackett

The Sacketts #8

by Louis L'Amour

A drifter by circumstance, William Tell Sackett hungered for a place he couldn’t name but knew he had to find. South of the Tetons, through a keyhole pass, he found it: a lonely yet beautiful valley—with a fortune in gold. Then he found an even greater treasure: Ange Kerry, a courageous and resourceful woman. But the harsh ways it takes to protect his claim—and their lives—may be the one thing that drives Ange away.

Genres: Westerns, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Adventure, Classics, Historical, Audiobook

192 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Louis Dearborn L'Amour was an American novelist and short story writer. His books consisted primarily of Western novels, though he called his work "frontier stories". His most widely known Western fiction works include Last of the Breed, Hondo, Shalako, and the Sackett series. L'Amour also wrote historical fiction (The Walking Drum), science fiction (The Haunted Mesa), non-fiction (Frontier), and poetry and short-story collections. Many of his stories were made into films. His books remain popular and most have gone through multiple printings. At the time of his death, almost all of his 105 existing works (89 novels, 14 short-story collections, and two full-length works of nonfiction) were still in print, and he was "one of the world's most popular writers".

Reviews

[Dirk Grobbelaar · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Mister," I said, "if you ain't any slicker with that pistol than you were with that bottom deal, you'd better not have at it."
Trouble was, he wouldn't be content with one mistake, he had to make two; so he had at it, and they buried him out west of town where men were buried who die by the gun.

So I’d finished The Daybreakers and immediately started on Sackett. The events depicted here take place shortly after the events of The Daybreakers, but the two books don’t have so much bearing on one another that you couldn’t read them separately. That said: it’s easy to see why they were combined to make a TV-movie / mini-series (The Sacketts, 1979), since it isn’t too difficult to pull the two stories together (there are some recurring characters and at least one, Cap Rountree, who features (somewhat) prominently throughout).

"Are you the Sackett who killed Bigelow?"
“He wasn't much good with a bottom deal."
"Nor with a gun, I guess."
"He was advised."

I enjoyed Sackett’s Tell Sackett as a protagonist, more so than Tyrel Sackett of Daybreakers. Tell is an older, faster, meaner, dirtier, more ornery version of younger brother Tyrel, and yet he is down to earth enough to be endearing. He has more experience and has lived dangerously for longer, which gives him the edge in entertainment value. Expect some amusing dialogue. Even so, I would have to say that Daybreakers is probably the better book of the two.

All I had was a wore-out saddle, four pistols, a Winchester carbine, and the clothes I stood up in. Yes, and I had me a knife, an Arkansas toothpick, good for hand-fighting or butchering meat.

Four pistols? Yes please. Fertilizer is taken from no one here.

It isn’t a very violent book, but things do happen and people do get their comeuppance where it’s due. It’s a simple little story of survival and adventure, but well told and short enough to be over before your attention starts to wander.

Trouble just naturally seemed to latch onto me and hang on with all its teeth.

3.5 stars

[Karina · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Boys," Pa used to say, "avoid conflict and trouble, for enough of it fetches to a man without his asking, but if you are attacked, smite them hip and thigh."

Pa was a great man for Bible speaking, but I never could see a mite of sense in striking them hip and thigh. When I had to smite them I did it on the chin or in the belly. (PG 7)

I (like always) didn't realize this was a series, and the eighth at that. Oooops! Anyway, I felt this could be read as a standalone. I wanted to LOVE it as I really do love westerns but Larry McMurtry has me western whipped (no pun intended).

The story line was just okay and it was super short so I didn't feel like I wasted time. I would have loved to meet more Native American characters but it was more about scummy cowboys and their lust for gold. I did like the main character, William Tell Sackett AKA Tell. He had an easy personality and was overall a good person until you crossed him.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite Sackett novels. It introduces the doomed Ange and Tell once again overcomes adversity and the elements. After killing a Bigelow he has s hunted by the brothers. Making his way to New Mexico he fines an old gold mine and returns with Cap. They begin a town and Tell finds Ange who was trapped in the valley with the gold mine after her grandfather died.

Plenty of action with Tell and Ange escaping from a snowbound valley. A gunfight with the last Bigelow and a lot of mention of Blackstone as Tell educates himself. The theme of this story is although everything is against Tell he sticks to his principles and never gives up. Overcoming weather, hostile antagonists and winning over Ange.

[Laur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story, steady pace that keeps the action moving forward!

[Jacob Proffitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the weakest Sackett tale so far. Tell is pretty awesome, so it isn't the hero (he has a subtle sense of humor that I found particularly engaging). Mostly, it's a weak story. It takes most of the first third to develop a recognizable through-line, though you can see in retrospect some aspects of that beginning that penetrate or resonate by the end.

But even once the story got started, it was a relatively weak one. I mean, putting a (mostly) peaceful town together around a gold strike is a big task for a big man and all, but I guess I just didn't feel it. Or didn't feel that he was terribly attached to the task (or the town), maybe?

Interestingly, I think I was actually more bothered that this had the weakest of some of the secondary concerns I've come to expect from L'Amour. Indeed, I think the lack of racial/cultural tolerance in this book made me realize how strong an element that has been in every other book so far (including The Daybreakers so it's not just that this is early in L'Amour's career). Not that Tell was intolerant or anything. Just that this time L'Amour didn't go out of his way to give a sympathetic portrayal of some historically disadvantaged group. I've come to expect that strong subtext of equality and manly virtue being the great equalizer and missed it in this story.

Still, weakest or not, it didn't suck and I still stayed up an extra hour too late last night just to finish it...

[Gerald Kinro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Drifter Tom Sackett comes home, wishing to settle down. He has, however, shot one of the notorious Bigelow brothers, and they are bent on revenge. He moves on and finds gold while spending time in a cave. Gold brings more attention to him, including that from the Bigelows. Typical of Lamour’s books a showdown ensues.

This book is full of action as Lamour paints a vivid picture of the characters and the scenes in which they work and play in. Highly recommended.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am waiting for a book to become available at my local library and was looking for a quick read. I read somewhere that Louis L'Amour described himself as a storyteller. Many years ago I read pretty much every L'Amour book I could get my hands on. Some of my favorites were his Sackett novels. This is the third Sackett novel published but in the Sackett series it is the eighth. The protagonist is William Tell Sackett and the time frame is 1874 - 1875. Tell fought for the Union Army during the Civil War. Since then he has been a wanderer and takes on many jobs from cowhand to miner.

The story opens with Tell having shot Wes Bigelow during a card game. Being a wanderer Tell decides it is time to hit the trail again. Working on a cattle drive he learns that Bigelow's brothers are looking for him. He also receives his very first letter. Sent by one of his brothers. Feeling homesick he decides to pay a visit. On the trail home and in the Sangre de Cristos mountains he finds gold. He also finds a beautiful woman, Ange Kerry.

Tell decides maybe it is time to settle down. And possibly get married. The gold can be the means to buy some land and start a new life. But when someone discovers gold trouble cannot be far behind. The Bigelow brothers are already seeking to avenge their brother and when Tell brings in gold and tries to stake a claim he has even more enemies who want to jump his claim. He lives in a violent time and place. As mentioned in the book when people live in a society where there is a sheriff, court and judge they can leave the enforcement of laws to others. Here you cannot depend on others to enforce the laws of society.

Tell is a strong moral character and carries a copy of a legal book that he tries to read and learn from but he is quick to fight when pushed. There was a movie based on this book and The Daybreakers starring Sam Elliott as Tell Sacket.

Louis L'Amour novels may never win a Pulitzer but they are a fun read and for me nostalgic. L'Amour is after all a storyteller.

[Jennifer Hooker · Rating 3 out of 5]

My grandfather was the biggest Louis L'Amour fan I've ever heard of. He passed away a few years ago and that's when I decided it was time to see what all the fuss was about. I must say that for my first Louis L'Amour book I was pleasantly surprised. The writing style was nothing special but I've seen worse. The plot was simple and short, which made it a fun, quick read. What I loved most, however, was the characters and how you can feel L'Amour's passion for the old west through his writing. Sackett tells the story of William Tell (no joke) Sackett who journeys west in order of settling down as a rancher. He's a quiet fellow but will not hesitate to attack if provoked. He's a kind, respectful, law-abiding guy who just wants to be left alone. He's a more intellectual man than some of his fellow Sacketts. He loves his family and would do almost anything for them. I see a lot of myself in Tell and I can imagine there's a lot of my grandpa in him too. This is a way that I can connect with my grandpa in ways that I didn't get to when he was around. I can't wait to get more involved in the Sackett family history with which L'Amour weaves subtle intricacies that keep the reader wanting more.

[Eva-Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a rippingly good adventure story! Much better than the last L'Amour book I read.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish the movie had done this book justice. Sam Elliot is a good actor but just not Tell to me.
He is a bit more rugged than his brothers. His self-consciousness when he finally sees his family after so long is endearing. I like that he took to Blackstone so diligently and how he applied it. The humor infused into how he dealt with troublemakers and their resulting confusion was perfection, “a soft answer turneth away wrath” indeed 😆 His and Cap building their town are my favorite scenes.

The situation with Ange was well set up, from the beginning to the end, and especially making you HaVe to know how it was going to work out after their misunderstanding(poor Tell).

[D. E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

'LL has penned many westerns, but I never figured he would write a heartbreaker. Tell Sackett married and heads West only for his wife to be seen by a man who was a monster. He raped and killed, hide the evidence, and shot the husband. Then the story begins. Tell Sackett against an alleged honest rancher with gunmen that work for him. He had no idea whom he had chosen for a target, but he was introduced to Sackett revenge. This is an excellent read for the genre.....DEHS

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tell Sackett stumbles across a gold mine and a beautiful girl. Greedy men try to take the mine away. Meanwhile, the family of a man that he was forced to kill in Uvalde are hunting him to get revenge.

[Izzie Flynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by far my favourite book by Louis L'Amour. I haven't enjoyed many of his books but this one is different. The descriptions are great, the characters aren't perfect and make mistakes... Brilliant.

[James Biser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tell Sackett is my favorite character invented by Lous L'Amour. This book is a story about Tell and it is great. The man even finds love.

[Eva North · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok, my genre is not usually westerns, however, listening to westerns with the hubby, bouncing down the interstate, it was really good.

[ValeReads Kyriosity · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my faves so far. I particularly liked the romance in this one.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had forgotten how good this story was. Definitely in my top three Sackett installments. Not a long read.

Simple frontier-western plot, deliberate actions by main characters. Tell’s morals and character is pretty solid, so the reader knows his intentions. Some might say predictable, but this is a pleasant read.

[Brandon Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've seen a man today.

[Jay French · Rating 3 out of 5]

I purchased a number of Louis L’Amour books recently, thinking I might try reading the kind of books my Dad read growing up. I asked one of my best friends from high school, who was always reading a L’Amour paperback, which one he’d suggest I read first, as I hadn’t read but a few. He told me his favorite was “Sackett”, and since that was in the bundle I purchased, I read it first. I’ve only read a handful of Westerns, mostly Zane Grey’s. There seemed to be a kind of formula, where the lone cowboy hero of the story was the silent, surprisingly smart fellow who appreciates the land and tries to do the right thing by his people and society. In “Sackett” we have a hero with attributes in multiple areas, many more than other Western heroes that I have read. Sackett is superhumanly strong, exceptionally smart (book smart as well as nature smart, and always learning), tall, sense of humor, head for business, strong moral and family code, handsome to the ladies. He’s pretty much a Western super hero. I didn’t get the impression anything could stop him, outside of horrible blizzards or a lucky shot from a mile away. (Ends up he’s only slowed down by these kinds of things.)

Once I got into the superhero mode, this ended up being a good read. I look forward to reading more, and seeing if the Sackett’s great genes exist in others of the family.

[Tish · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Have read a good number of Louis L'Amour books, including this one, but it's been years, so I thought I'd read this one again. Guess I was missing my dad, who was a huge fan! I enjoyed reading it, but not as much as I remember liking most of L'Amour's novels. So either my tastes have changed in the last 30 years--entirely possible--or this just wasn't one of my favorites. I liked Tell Sackett: he does what needs doing without whining about it and has both a strong sense of honor and a sense of humor. I just thought the story didn't have as much content and depth as I would have liked.

[David Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sackett is on my favorites list representing every Louis L'Amour book that I have ever read, which is a lot. Most, but not all, are westerns. Louis was the best in that genre. One can actually learn about life and philosophy from a Louis L'Amour western just as one can from Tolkien. They are not mutually exclusive.

[Jeff Dickison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very short, action-packed, quickly read tale of how Tell Sackett discovered gold, built a town and found his girl, Ange. L'Amour, Luke Short & Elmer Kelton, are the kings of western writers with many of their books being filmed. This one would make a great movie. Highly recommended.

[Kimber Lybbert · Rating 4 out of 5]

More fun from L'Amour. These books are not inherently great literature. I'm not sure that L'Amour even proofread one time. But I just keep reading them...

[Brian Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's long been an observation that Westerns are Romance Novels for men, with many of the same beat patterns and relationship woes - cowboys finding women, losing women due to the harshness of the land, and winning them back - running alongside their long ubiquity and similar length on the bookshelves. Sackett takes that one step further.

Sackett is what you get when Nora Roberts writes a Conan pastiche. And I mean this as very high praise.

Conan is an iconic hero: just simply more physically capable and in tune with nature than most men, he carries in him a deep philosophical code that powers his ability to restore the world to its rightful order when he lives by it. Sackett is the same: L'Amour is quick to let you know that Sackett is not just physically powerful, a crack shot and kilt him a bar when he was only 3, but also that he is an incorruptible spirit of the civilizing power of the United States - his family fought for the US in every war, wouldn't turn traitor in the recent conflict, and driven not just improve himself at every opportunity (improving his literacy by pounding through legal philosophy texts) but also to carve out towns that would run by the rule of law and would allow the coddled Eastern folk he occasionally derides to walk the street in peace and prosperity. (In all this he is a reverse Conan, who survives by Barbarian purity in a world where civilization is decadent and corrupt.)

Through this he has an romance very much of the Nora Roberts (to my mind the queen of the romance novels) vein, just with the steamy scenes cut to make room for gunfights.

It's a very satisfying book. It's not complicated, but what depth is there is well thought out and grounded in a real love of the land and country. There's a very clever treasure map that I am so stealing to use in a D&D game at some point, desperados, a lost gold mine, foolish young gunslingers, wise old coots, evil land grabbers and even a pipe smoking old mother at home in her rocking chair. Sackett has everything any western could ever need.

[*Stani* · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story of William Tell Sackett and his adventure in the mountains.

We met Tell Sackett in the previous book called Daybreakers. I believe he was just briefly mentioned there towards the end.

He is the oldest of three boys and a “drifter” by circumstance. He fought in the civil war and worked as a cow hand with outfits.

Now he arrived in Mora, where his two younger brothers, Orrin and Tyrel settled down and built their lives. With an old friend of the Sacketts, Cap Rountree, Tell sets out for the mountains once more in search for gold.

Once in the mountains Tell and Cap decide to build a town to support the gold rush that would surely come.

As Tell ventures into high into the mountains, he finds a hidden valley, secluded by tall peaks and a rushing waterfall and there he finds a cave and inside it an old Spanish outfit that died long ago. With them died the information about a gold that they found.

He ventures out and finds the gold mine and with that a surprise of his lifetime. A girl that has been hiding in that valley for over a year, since her pa died in an accident while he was mining the gold.

Now Tell has to figure out how to not only bring the gold down from the mountains but also how to get the girl back into the civilization.

And of course when the bad guys get a whiff of that gold, they start trailing Tell in hopes that he will lead them to the treasure.

****

This was well written chapter of the Sackett saga. I liked Tell and Cap Rountree makes for a welcome returning character.

Tell is a complex man and we dwell deeper into the Sackett history and his own background is pretty well developed.

Overall an enjoyable story of love, hope, lust and redemption.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of all the L'Amour books I've read so far, I've enjoyed his Sackett series the most. And my favorite Sackett character is William "Tell" Sackett. We've already met his brothers Orrin and Tyrel in "The Daybreakers". Tell is the oldest and feels like he is neither as handsome nor as social as his brothers, but instead more of a loner. He catches a gambler cheating and gives him a chance to make it good, but instead the man draws on him and Tell is forced to kill him. The guy's friends and family are after Tell's hide, so he scoots on up into the wilderness, where he discovers two things that will change his life: gold, and a girl. But it's nip and tuck whether he will be able to hang onto either.

L'Amour is an excellent storyteller, and this yarn just draws you in, while the action keeps you in suspense. In the Sackett movies, which L'Amour directed, Sam Elliott plays Tell Sackett perfectly. While the movie deviates slightly from the book, the pertinent parts are all there. I'm ready to follow the Sacketts on some more adventures!

[Stifynsemons · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.099 stars, I liked it, but probably won't read again.

Another Sackett, another adventure, the two are inseparable. The beginning of this story follows one of the most interesting trails I've seen followed, to a gold mine. The trail was staked out in quartz crystals separated by long distances, but placed in such a way that the sun glinting off it them could be seen from the previous marker.


Naturally, Tell Sackett gets in trouble and has to lay a false trail for his claim. And there's a woman and a rip roaring fun way to ruin the night for a bunch of squatter's in his town. But out in the Rockies, escaping out of boxed canyon from some rustlers trying to jump claim, during the onset of winter up a natural chimney with a Kid with a broken leg, now there's a man.

And he's a reading Blackstone. That's a fair bit interesting, I'll have to look into that ... classics that authors name drop is usually a good source of reading material.

[Liz F. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slightly surprised, but I actually really enjoyed this book!! :D
My Dad recommended it to me after he read it, so I picked it up and had fun reading it. A nice quick read! ;)
The characters were intriguing, as well as the plot. I would recommend to 14+, but I suppose it depends on how squeamish you are. (I'm not very squeamish. :P)
Content: a little bit of language, gunfights, killing people, etc.
4 stars! :)

[Brianna Steinman · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A man who plans to sing while he's riding had better reach an understanding with his horse. He should have him a good voice, or a horse with no ear for music."

3.5 ✰ rounded up to 4 -- Enjoyed this one, once I truly got invested. Took me until probably Chapter 8 or so? I like Tell - he's witty, understated and sarcastic, but firm in his principles. The addition of Cap was also helpful - I enjoyed him as a secondary character. Honestly, I wasn't too crazy about Tell and Ange's love story. We'll see how I feel as I continue the series. Maybe that duo will grow on me?

[Jay Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Tell Sackett is the oldest of three brothers and is going to see his brothers and his mother. It takes a trail less traveled. In the heights, he finds gold and discovers a person is stealing his food. HE takes as much as he can carry and goes to visit.He is returning to bring home more when the trouble starts. He cannot go directly to the gold find. The book is action packed.