Louis L’Amour’s novel The Cherokee Trail was published in 1982.
Mary Breydon, widow of retired major Marshall is taking on her late husband’s job of running a stagecoach station. With her daughter Peg she fled her home Harlequin Oaks in the South when it was pillaged and razed by guerrillas. Her father had taught her to ride, to shoot and to stand firm – ‘... “the strongest,” her father said, “is he who stands alone!’ (p95).
She meets a Union cavalry officer Barry Owen – (not Gary from the 7th Cavalry music!) Indeed, she meets all sorts of folk on the stagecoaches passing through: ‘Actors, prospectors, gamblers, miners, hunters, newspapermen, homemakers, and shady ladies, whiskey peddlers and weapons-salesmen, Indian agents, drummers from all over the world (p193).
She’s stubborn and brave and peremptorily dismisses the slovenly detestable Scant Luther, making an enemy of the man; there’s another even more formidable, a ruthless war criminal who actually killed her husband! She has to face Indians and gunmen – yet nothing will deter her from making her station the best on the Cherokee Trail.
She is helped by the mysterious Temple Boone, cantankerous Ridge Fenton, the orphan Wat and the Irish lass, Matty – all characters who add to a very enjoyable story.
Interestingly, this adage ‘The secret of victory is to attack, always attack’ (p72) is used in his other books. And why not?
Editorial comment:
‘...
the Williamses’ (p138)
And
ne-er-do well ‘called Williams’ (p64). Of all the names in the world, why duplicate
for two different people?
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