2 writers turn to Westerns again

Robert Parker and Loren Estlemanof have come up with entertaining works.

New York, April 28: Robert B Parker and Loren D Estleman, two novelists who made their bones writing detective novels, sometimes write Westerns, but they usually approach their contributions to the genre in very different ways. Estleman prefers to do meticulous research and write myth-busting novels about real places and people. Parker eschews research and makes everything up. The differences notwithstanding, each of their new novels is entertaining and beautifully written.

Estleman`s "The Branch and the Scaffold" retells the story of Isaac Parker, the legendary hanging judge of the wild west. Robert B. Parker`s "Brimstone" continues his saga of Everett Hitch and Virgil Cole, two imaginary gun hands who were played to perfection by Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris in the 2008 movie "Appaloosa." To tell the story of Judge Parker, Estleman had a wealth of historical material from which to draw, including voluminous newspaper reports and thousands of pages of official records from the judge`s 21 years on the bench. Parker arrived in Fort Smith, Ark., in 1875, to bring order to a vast, lawless expanse encompassing the Western District of Arkansas and the Indian Nations that were later folded into the state of Oklahoma. "It was a hot Sunday in early May," when the judge and his wife Mary arrived by river boat in Fort Smith and "boarded a waiting phaeton," Estleman writes. They "sat with hands folded while the Negro driver and a porter secured their luggage, and rode down a broad street harrowed by hooves and carriage wheels to a fine dust that rose in clouds like flour and cast a scrim over a town built largely of unpainted wood, with neither sidewalks nor lamps to illuminate the streets at night. ... Mary drew a handkerchief from her sleeve and held it to her nose and mouth. "`Isaac` — her voice was muffled, but still she lowed it a notch — `we`ve made a great mistake.`" A rogue`s gallery of the old West wanders through Estleman`s story: arch villains including Belle Star, the Daltons, Bill Doolin, Blue Duck, Ned Christie, Cherokee Bill and Cole Younger, as well as star-wearing ruffians such as William T. Tilghman and Heck Thomas. It took hard men to tame the territory, or, as Estleman puts it: "At any given time — so went the rumor — one fourth of the worst element in the Nations was at large, one fourth was in the Fort Smith jail, and one fourth was on its way there." "`That`s three-fourths,` said Tenderheels. `What about the rest?` "`That fourth rides for Parker.`" Judge Parker, as Estleman would have it, succeeded in his mission of taming the territory, although at a bloody cost. The judge handed down 160 death sentences, 79 of which were carried out on the gallows outside his courthouse window. Sixty-five deputy U.S. marshals were killed in the line of duty during his years on the bench. Robert B. Parker begins "Brimstone," where "Resolution" (2008), the second book in the Hitch and Cole series, left off. Cole is still searching for his unfaithful girlfriend, Allie French, finally finding her working in a dance hall in a hardscrabble Texas border town. He spends most of the book trying to decide if he can forgive Allie for her unfaithfulness. Meanwhile, Cole, armed with his Colt revolver and a lever action Winchester, and Hitch, hefting his menacing 8-guage shotgun, take on the task of bringing order to the booming cattle town of Brimstone, Texas. There they find an evangelist named Brother Percival and a saloon owner named Pike in a death struggle for control of the town`s soul. Cole and Hitch let the struggle take its course and then wipe out the victors, dispatching bad guys as dispassionately as they might shoot down a rabid coyote. The story is riveting, but as usual with a Robert B. Parker Western, the great attraction is the writing itself, especially the brilliantly rendered dialogue. Hitch and Cole, reminiscent of the steely eyed, soft-spoken lawmen Randolph Scott played in the movies, speak volumes to one another with a few words and a nod of the head.