June on the Range Week 1 Update

I started off this year's June on the Range reading event with the novel, Silver Canyon by Louis L'Amour. First published in an illustrated, shorter form in the pages of the June 1951 issue of Giant Western magazine, Silver Canyon tells the story of Matt Brennan (Matt Sabre in the original version), a gunslinger looking to put his past behind him and settle down somewhere for the rest of his days.

At the start of our story, Brennan arrives in the town of Hattan's Point in the south-central Utah Territory where he almost immediately sets eyes on and becomes infatuated with young Moira Maclaren, the daughter of ranch owner, Rud Maclaren. To be honest, his instant attraction and obsession with Moira is a tad on the creepy side, but it is a major motivator in his desire to put down roots as a rancher just outside of town.

Of course, Moira is already in a bit of a relationship and that's just one obstacle in Brennan's journey. Eventually our hero begins to dig in and make himself a permanent resident by partnering with an elderly ranch owner, allying with other ranchers, and getting mixed up in a messy web of lies and twisted business dealings intended to secure the silver of the novel's title (something we don't really learn of until much later in the book).

One of my favorite sequences in the novel involves Brennan being badly injured and hiding out in an oasis where the ruins of an ancient tower loom overhead. There's something almost mystical about this particular setting and I thought L'Amour did a nice job of painting this place where the old world touches the new and our hero eventually departs healed, bearded, and, to some degree, reborn.

There are a few brutal shootouts in the novel, however the primary resolution to things is handled without a single pistol being drawn(!), but violence does return one final time before the book draws to a close.

Surprisingly, this was the very first L'Amour novel I have ever read, chosen randomly from the shelves at Iliad Books in North Hollywood, California and I was rather pleased. It will certainly not be my last!

The edition I read (see above) was published by Bantam Books (New Bantam edition, 3rd printing, March 1972).

Up next for June on the Range is Horse Heaven Hill by Zane Grey! Watch this space for my review of that one, pardner!