"Lewis B. Patten’s A Man Alone Plot" by Mike Baker

 

Lewis B. Patten’s A Man Alone Plot: The Law in Cottonwood & Red Runs the River by Mike Baker     Every time I read a Lewis Patten book, I start thinking about Frank Gruber’s list of seven Western plots*. My intuition tells me that Patten’s work defies such categorization and, while Gruber’s list may be correct, Patten's writing transcends it.  Here’s what I mean: there were some liberal reinterpretations of Agatha Christie books made into movies that Christie canonists hated because they monkeyed with the plots but, as I heard someone say in their defense, Dame Agatha wrote whodunits. These new interpretations were whydunits. Patten books often feel like they don’t fit Gruber’s list, but they do. Lewis Patten, at his best, wasn’t just writing about adventure. He was deep into the psychology of both the protagonist and the antagonist. And he usually did it inside 150 pages. Marshal Morgan Gaunt has a problem. The first cattle drive is due into Cottonwood, and the town council passed a “no gun” resolution that Gaunt will have to enforce on his own, as he’s The Law in Cottonwood. Cottonwood is, six months of the year, a wide-open town, which means whores, gambling, and non-stop liquor for all the drovers rolling cattle into the stockyard depot. Gaunt is a longtime lawman, and he knows the first few groups of waddies will fight the no-gun ordinance tooth and nail. And that worries him almost as much as Buck Robineau coming back worries him. Robineau is a trail boss that Gaunt shot and crippled during last year’s herd season, and Robineau swore to kill Gaunt when he came back. None of the saloon men like the no-gun ordinance, as it threatens business, but moreover, they don’t like Gaunt, who busts up crooked gamblers who rob the waddies of their wages by cheating them, and the hardcases that rob and kill them when they’re passed out drunk. They all want him dead. The Law in Cottonwood covers three days of the season, and if you’ve read a few of these, you can imagine how it goes. Gaunt, a man alone, fights to keep Cottonwood under control as the forces against him mount to brutally impossible odds. Lewis Patten wrote many of these in his long career, and this was a later one, written in 1978, near his career’s end. It’s as good as any of the earlier stories and perhaps is tempered by the understanding a long life gives a man. The story isn’t less tense, and the beatings Gaunt takes aren’t softened. What Patten does, though, more with a softer palette, if that makes sense, is keep us in Gaunt’s head, where the terrain is darker and uglier. There are less big explosions and more internal bombs going off as Gaunt, a lawman near the end of his career, pushes through his mounting physical and mental wounds to appear unmoved by the unfolding events as he faces down a growing wave of vicious gunmen hot for his blood.

The “man alone” plot is my favorite storyline, and Patten is its master. I thought his book Death of a Gunfighter (1968) was my favorite until I read Red Runs the River (1970). Captain John Sessions, formerly of the Army of Northern Virginia, comes home to find his family seemingly butchered by Cheyenne until he realizes his stash of greenbacks and gold is missing, which had to mean white men covering up the robbery with an Indian-like slaughter. Sessions tracks the men to a near fort, where he promptly loses them in a mass influx of riders come to sign on and fight the currently rampaging Cheyenne. Sessions signs on himself, thinking the killers did as well. They all head out, tracking the Cheyenne to a river with a long narrow island, where the Cheyenne attack. Patten only sketches the island’s dimensions as, throughout the book, he selectively stretches its features to meet the story’s needs. The men first dig rifle pits and then connect the pits with trenches, which helps them better organize their defense against the Cheyenne but also facilitates the hunt and then internal war between Sessions and the three unknown killers. The book is mostly claustrophobic internal monologue, increasingly weary and paranoid, as Sessions tries to figure out who among his fellow Indian fighters are the killers, with the killers hunting him during the confusion of the various skirmishes and then at night, stretching slightly the believable but shoring that reality by weighing almost every conflict against Sessions. It’s a Patten formula, the lone hero getting attacked on all sides, his injuries mounting as his will to survive is tested, and his rage and need for righteous vengeance mounts to a fever pitch. I’ve not read every book he wrote, but it seems to be the theme central to all of the books I’ve read. Lewis Patten’s “man alone” plots, where the protagonist faces impossible odds and must rely solely on their own wits and resilience to survive, serve as a powerful metaphor for the human condition. In Patten’s stories, the protagonists are often faced with brutal and unrelenting violence, forcing them to confront the darkest aspects of human nature. Through Gaunt’s and Sessions’ struggles, Patten reveals the profound isolation and loneliness that can accompany the human experience, that man remains fundamentally alone in the universe, forced to confront the abyss of uncertainty and mortality. By exploring this theme through the lens of the Western genre, Patten creates a sense of timelessness and universality, reminding readers that, despite the trappings of modernity, we remain vulnerable to the same existential fears and uncertainties that have haunted humanity throughout history.

* Frank Gruber’s List of Western Plots 1. Union Pacific story. The plot concerns construction of a railroad, a telegraph line, or some other type of modern technology or transportation. Wagon train stories fall into this category. 2. Ranch story. The plot concerns threats to the ranch from rustlers or large landowners attempting to force out the proper owners. 3. Empire story. The plot involves building a ranch empire or an oil empire from scratch, a classic rags-to-riches plot. 4. Revenge story. The plot often involves an elaborate chase and pursuit by a wronged individual, but it may also include elements of the classic mystery story. 5. Cavalry and Indian story. The plot revolves around “taming” the wilderness for white settlers. 6. Outlaw story. The outlaw gangs dominate the action. 7. Marshal story. The lawman and his challenges drive the plot.