Showdown in Gun Town

By: Lauran Paine

Narrated by: Alex Boyles

Walt Hodge had delivered 80 horses to Whipple Barracks for the Army, and he wasn’t in a big hurry to get home. He traveled down the Saginaw Mountains and into the upland cow country of Sunflower, Arizona, seeking only a cold glass of beer, food, and a bed for himself, along with feed for his horse. He should have listened and turned around when he asked the hostler what was going on and was told: “Trouble, mister. Bad trouble.”

After he had a drink, surrounded by silent cowmen, he discovered why the town of Sunflower was so unusually quiet and empty. He had walked into the middle of an emerging range war over water rights in the middle of a blistering summer.

Being mistaken as one of Jim Bricker’s B-Back-to-Back men annoyed Walt, but being knocked out by a Bricker rider, who said Walt was a Mike Weedon man, was just more than he could take. Then he met Bricker’s daughter.

It doesn’t take long for Hodge to find himself in the middle of things once he is blamed for the killing of a Bricker man. By the time the war is over, three men are dead, the town of Sunflower finds its self-respect, and a jailhouse is full of demoralized cowmen.

©2020 Lauran Paine Jr. (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing

great book

I enjoyed this book. glad I let this go. some I don't like but I did this one

Too short

Loved the characters.
Especially loved the reader, Alex Boyles.
I wanted the story to go on.
Ended too abruptly for me.

It was a good story

It was a good story with a few surprises. Yet, it’s your typical cowboy story.

Terrible Narration

The story had less quality than a rerun of Bonanza or Gun Smoke. The narrator doesn’t have any idea how to make a grizzled old deputy sound like he is growling dialog. Terrible.

Solid, sure, but superficial.

Paine published over a thousand books in his lifetime-- which is as workman-like as a writer can get. And it shows.
He also wrote Open Range. I think the movie's performances and script likely 'enhanced' the book.
Marred by some 'B' Western elements.