Giles A. Lutz, The Honyocker (1961)(from the archives, Ron Scheer)
Giles A. Lutz (1910-1982) was a prolific writer, with over 60 western
novels published under his own name and a half dozen pseudonyms. During the
1940s and 1950s, he published more than 200 stories in the pulps, mostly
westerns, but also sports fiction. In 1962, he received the Spur Award for this novel, The Honyocker, from Western Writers of America.
Plot. “Honyocker”
was an insulting term bestowed by cattlemen and cowboys on homesteaders in the
far West, who attempted to make a living from subsistence farming on what had
at one time been open range. Turning the prairie sod, they were destroying not
only free grass for the ranchers. Unknown to them, they were also permanently disturbing a fragile
ecology too arid for cultivation of dryland crops that would support a family
of settlers.
Lutz builds his story around such a
family, the Backuses, who have
migrated to Montana from Missouri. Years of crop failures and an
aversion to
hard work have left them poverty stricken and desperate. The central
character,
Ashel Backus, is the one honorable son among three who tries to keep his
brothers from stealing to put food on the table. Discovering that they
have butchered a steer taken from the herd of a neighboring rancher,
Milo
Vaughan, Ashel offers to pay for the animal by working off the debt, and
Vaughan agrees to hire him for a month of odd jobs around the ranch.
 |
| Montana homestead, 1910 |
Character. Becoming a temporary ranch hand works against Ashel in two ways. From the start,
Vaughan’s foreman, Dandy Cabe, openly despises him, and the two are quickly
involved in a fierce fistfight. Meanwhile, other homesteaders believe Ashel has
betrayed them by changing sides in what is becoming a simmering range war.
The surprise is that Milo Vaughan is more than satisfied with Ashel’s
work (mostly jobs the cowboys won’t do, like repairing a roof and fixing fence),
and Milo’s wife quickly comes to like him, too. After a month, he is offered a
full-time job. All of this earns the scorn of Dandy Cabe and Ashel’s two
brothers, who make trouble for each other, despite Ashel’s efforts to keep the
peace.
Animosities deepen as Vaughan’s daughter returns from back East, where
she has been going to school. Both Ashel and Cabe are attracted to her, but she
has plans to marry someone else. Matters come to a head on the day of the
wedding, as Cabe hunts for Ashel to kill him, and one man finally guns down the
other.
 |
| Montana ranch, 1872 |
Ashel is an appealing character—a young man with a strong sense of
ethics, he is torn between loyalty to his disreputable family and the warm
respect he earns from Vaughan, who becomes something of a father figure to
him. Not only does he get the approval of Milo’s wife, but their daughter,
Jenny, admires him as well. Her presence in the story provides occasion to
bring out Ashel’s loneliness and his sense of futility at the unlikely prospect
of ever winning the love of such a girl.
Wrapping up. Reading the novel, I puzzled for many pages
over why it received a Spur Award. The first two-thirds of what is a very short
novel are flat and formulaic and the characters cardboardy. When Vaughan gives
Ashel a lecture on the environmental impact of homesteading, the novel
surprisingly comes to life. It stops being a conventional story casting greedy
ranchers as villains threatening the well being of poor-but-honest frontier
families, as we see in Jack Schaefer’s Shane
(1949).
Oddly, this turn in the story gives it legs and a momentum it has lacked
until this point. It deepens the dilemma for Ashel as hostilities mount between
ranchers and homesteaders, and everyone turns on him as someone not to be trusted,
including Vaughan. And suspense builds in the final chapters as Cabe determines
to kill Ashel.
Yvette Banek, A COFFIN FOR DIMITRIOS, Eric Ambler
Joe Barone, HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET, Jamie Ford
Les Blatt, THE CASE OF THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS, Anthony Boucher
Brian Busby, THE TYPEWRITER GIRL, Grant Allen
Bill Crider, A TOUCH OF INFINITY, Harlan Ellison
Curt Evans, SERVICE OF ALL THE DEAD, Colin Dexter
Charles Gramlich, WEB OF SPIES, Nick Carter
Richard Horton, SPACE SERVICE, ed. Andre Norton
Jerry House, TWO-THIRDS OF A GHOST, Helen McCloy
George Kelley. PULP MASTERS, ed. Ed Gorman and Martin Greenberg
Margot Kinberg, SISTER PELAGIA AND THE WHITE BULLDOG, Boris Akunin
B.V> Lawson, DEATH OF A DUTCHMEN, Magdalene Nabb
Steve Lewis, THE KILLING KIND, Elliott West
Todd Mason, THE BIG BINGE aka IT'S ALL IN YOUR MIND by Robert Bloch (IMAGINATIVE TALES, July 1955; ; included in THE LOST BLOCH, V. 1: THE DEVIL WITH YOU!,
J.F. Norris, THE AFFAIR OF THE GALLOWS TREE, Stephen Chambers
Mathew Paust, A THOUSAND TIMES MORE FAIR, Kenji Yoshino
James Reasoner, THE GUN SHARP, William R. Cox
Richard Robinson, TALES OF THE SECTOR GENERAL, James White
Kevin Tipple/Barry Ergang, REAPER, Ben Mezrich
TracyK, SHE SHALL HAVE MURDER, Delano Ames
6 comments:
I've never heard of honyocker before That's pretty cool.
So far, nothing from me today, Patti. I am several days behind in my EVERYTHING! Having one of those weeks. But at least I got my flu shot yesterday and babysat my grandchildren last night so it wasn't a total lost. Hey, and I actually FINALLY hung the Scrabble Club sign out in the lobby and hoping for fellow scrabble players to find their way to us. :)
Mine's up now, Patti:
The Affair of the Gallows Tree by Stephen Chalmers
So's mine, finally. THANKS once again, Patti.
Thanks for including my post, Patti, as ever. And, you know, I'm not usually much of a western reader, but this one sounds interesting. Thanks for sharing.
I'm intrigued by the Honyocker, too. New word and new author, but the story sounds like a winner. Helpful review.
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