Lewis B. Patten (1915–1981)

Johnny Yoder is the deputy sheriff in Cottonwood Springs. He is courting Molly Teplin, the local school teacher and wife of gunfighter, Slade Teplin. Teplin has not been in town for five years thus really abandoning his wife with no support payments or communication. While she would like to divorce Slade, she is fearful of his reaction especially towards Johnny.

It all comes to a head when Teplin shows up in town for a surprise visit and creates an issue by killing the son of a local rancher in a gunfight. Teplin intends to humiliate his wife, kill Johnny and destroy the town for what the residents did to him in his youth. A short, fast action western novel that Patten is known for.… (mais)

This volume contains two of Patten's novellas. The first is "The Golden Magnet" which was originally published in Best Western Magazine as "The Man on the Stage" but here has had Patten's original title restored. In this story, Cole Estes has come west to help an old friend save his stage line from fierce competition. On the journey riding in a coach of the line, he is accompanied by his friend's headstrong daughter who has taken a dislike to. The coach is forced off the road by the competitors coach and all but the driver survive.

Now Cole is angry and agrees to take the job he initially thought was hopeless. Soon he is fighting for his life and reputation but with the assistance of a local dance hall girl, he plans to turn the tables on the villains. Fast paced with lots of action.

The second title is "Trail to Vicksburg" which is published for the first time anywhere in this volume. Set during the Civil War, Patten could not get it published because the period in which he set it. The story concerns 17 year old Jeff Hueston's adventure as trail boss of an 1000 head herd of Texas cattle he is trying to move from Goliad, Texas to New Orleans to feed the Confederate Army there. His biggest obstacle is crossing the Mississippi River although he is warned about outlaws and army deserters and he does outsmart a cattle rustler. Patten includes great detail about organizing and running a cattle drive from the initial roundup and branding to staffing the a drive and outfitting the chuck wagon. The trip provides many challenges to overcome them and get his herd to market. While Jeff really wants to enlist in the Confederate Army, once he sees the condition of that army, he realizes the cause is lost.… (mais)

The Hide Hunters by Lewis B. Patten is an American Western novel that is set in Texas with the battle at Adobe Walls as the centerpiece of the story. The main character is Jess Burdett, who, en route to joining the buffalo hunters helps a badly beaten woman escape her brute of a husband. They arrive at the buffalo hunters headquarters just days before the famous Comanche and Kiowa attack. Unfortunately, the woman’s husband also arrives tracking his runaway wife.

I had recently read another account of this battle and both descriptions were very much the same so I am assuming that the author did his research. The tension of fighting Indians while guarding himself from the angry husband kept the pages turning. As one fellow teases him, “It’s Hell to get shot by a white man during an Indian fight.”

Lewis B. Patten is a Spur winning author of western stories. Although there is little buffalo hunting in The Hide Hunters, the author blends frontier morality, tense action and actual history into an enjoyable and quick read.… (mais)