Troublesome Range: A Western Story

by Peter Dawson

After five years of virtual banishment because he sold out his small outfit to the Middle Arizona Cattle Company, giving it a foothold on the Mesa Grande range, violent-tempered Joe Bonnyman is summoned back to Lodgepole by his father when it appears that a cattle war between the syndicate and the various rangers is imminent.

During his short stay in town, Joe has an unpleasant meeting with Ed Merrill, the brother of a girl Joe had once courted. Warned by Merrill to stay away from his sister, Joe whips the man in a fist fight. Later that same night Ed Merrill decides to ride out of Lodgepole to his ranch, rather than face humiliation the next day over the fight. On his way to the stable to get his horse, he sees a light in the Acme Land Company’s office and realizes that someone is opening the safe. While he is deliberating what to do, the hold-up man comes out, sees him, and brings down his gun on Ed’s head with a vicious blow. From a piece of evidence found at the scene of the crime, it appears that Joe Bonnyman did it.

Troublesome Range is a classic story of good and evil, of a man forced to do whatever it takes to defend his honor and his town.

Genres: Westerns

246 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2007

About the author

Peter is the pen name of author Jonathan Hurff Glidden. He was born in Kewanee, Illinois, in 1907, and studied English literature at the University of Illinois. In his career as a Western author, Glidden published sixteen Western novels and over one hundred and twenty short novels and short stories for the magazine market. His first novel, The Crimson Horseshow, won the Dodd, Mead Prize as the 1941 Best Western of the Year. He died in 1957.

Note: "Peter Dawson" was also a pen name used by Frederick Faust (better known another of his pen names, Max Brand). Care should be taken when attributing books.

Reviews

[Wayland Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I freely admit, I'm very spoiled on Westerns. When I was a kid, I read everything Louis L'Amour wrote. And I do mean everything. That's a lot of books, but no one writes a Western better. His work ages well.

Dawson is a writer I was unfamiliar with. I ran across this book because it fit a niche in a reading challenge for me, and I generally enjoy the genre. It's a decent, but not great, story. Joe Bonnyman has been exiled from home for five years after an argument with his stubborn father. But when Yace Bonnyman is being backed into a corner by a land deal, he sends for his wayward son. Up to this point, it's what you'd expect in a typical Western.

But.

The deal gets worked out peacefully just before Joe gets home. He and his father quarrel again, and Joe takes off. There are other players working behind the scenes, and before Joe knows what's going on, he's framed for a murder. The fragile peace starts unraveling as the mysterious manipulator stirs the pot and sinks lower and lower, lying, killing, betraying friends. Things get very chaotic as Joe has to clear his name and work out what's happening all around him. There's also the matter of Ruth, the woman who turned him away just before his exile, and Jean, who he meets when he comes back.

It's a bit of a rambling story. It has the requirements of the genre- fist fights, horses, gun battles, even a train. But the dialogue doesn't age well (apparently Dawson died in 1957) and some of the phrasing is just weird. Suspicions about characters are "indictments." Several characters swear "By Satan" which just seems really, really strange.

It's a readable, but not gripping, Western.