THE SUNRISE GUNS (a.k.a. LAW OF THE FORTY-FIVES) by William Colt MacDonald
Reviewed by Barry Ergang
A few years ago as of this writing (June 2011), Turner Classic Movies one day ran a marathon of westerns starring Roy Rogers. It was fun to watch them again after so many years, and they got me thinking about many of the B-western heroes whose adventures I followed so avidly when I was a kid. Thus, with a view to revisiting my first childhood and getting a head start on the second, I began to rent some of those films from Netflix—films starring, among others, William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy, Lash Larue, "Wild Bill" Elliott, Allan "Rocky" Lane, Buck Jones, Tim McCoy and, as the Three Mesquiteers, Robert Livingston, Ray "Crash" Corrigan, and Max Terhune portraying, respectively, Stony Brooke, Tucson Smith, and Lullaby Joslin.*
As I learned from the credits, the Mesquiteers were created by the prolific western writer William Colt MacDonald. According to a Wikipedia article, two of them originally appeared in the 1929 novel Restless Guns. But it was the 1933 Law of the Forty-Fives, later renamed The Sunrise Guns, that “officially” began the series.
The movies tended to emphasize Stony Brooke as the lead character, but The Sunrise Guns stars Tucson Smith. The book opens when he and Stony are in the town of Juarez in Mexico, having come there seeking a change of scenery and some excitement. They’re disappointed at not having found any of the latter—until they observe a Mexican approach another man who has just emerged from Big Tim’s Palace. They recognize the other man as Hugo Hayden, wealthy owner of the Double-H cattle ranch. The Mexican tries to pull a gun on Hayden, but the latter knocks him down. The Mexican hurries away, and Hayden hails a passing carriage and rides off into the night.
Tucson and Stony wander along until they come to a disreputable neighborhood and enter a cantina. There they spot Hayden among the seedy clientele, and Tucson notices a man gazing intently at Hayden while he slowly removes a gun from its holster. Tucson draws and fires his own gun, downing the would-be assassin.
Chaos ensues, and the trio bolts from the cantina, initially pursued by the Mexican police. Once things settle down a bit, Hayden explains that he was lured to Juarez by someone wanting to sell a valuable bull. “Lookin’ for a chance to start an argument and plug you,” Stony says. Hayden’s ranch is near the town of Yavapai, where there has been trouble of late. A group of unknown raiders have killed a number of men, settlements have been attacked, and cattle have been rustled. Hayden says he wants Tucson and Stony to join his crew—not as cow-punchers, but rather as bodyguards and investigators.
They agree and have barely entered Yavapai when Hayden is gunned down in an ambush. Tucson and Stony determine to stay on and find out who is behind it, knowing that when they do, they’ll also learn the identity of the raiders’ boss. They’re aided in their investigations by the sheriff and his deputy, Lullaby Joslin.
I’ve barely described some of the events in the first four chapters in a book of twenty-two chapters, a book that is pure pulpy delight for fans of western fiction, and especially of B-western films. Shades of James Bond, it even has a nefarious super-villain type, a man named Roantell who has allegedly come to the region to study snakes, but whose machinations have more sinister goals. If I point out that he has a pit of poisonous snakes beneath a trap door in his home, that Tucson eventually confronts him in said home…well, you can probably guess that their meeting isn’t a polite tea party.
This is not a book for someone who wants in-depth character studies or brilliant insights into the human condition. This is the literary equivalent of the westerns kids watched in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s at Saturday matinees, and on early 1950s television. There is, quite literally, action in every chapter: fists flying, guns spurting flame and smoke, bullets cutting the air. Reading it, one has the feeling that William Colt MacDonald loved every minute of the writing.
I couldn’t put it down, hope to find other Mesquiteers novels, and wholeheartedly recommend that fans of this sort of adventure find copies of Sunrise Guns (original Title: Law of the Forty-Fives)
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.That said, let me end with the caveat that MacDonald employed some racial stereotyping and epithets modern readers should find offensive, but which they should also put into the context of the time he was writing about and the times in which he wrote.
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*Other actors portrayed some of these characters at different times as the series progressed and Republic Pictures made changes. John Wayne portrayed Stony Brook in a number of the films. Because it was a successful and popular series, some of the other Poverty Row studios of the era created their own trios of cowboy heroes—e.g., the Rough Riders and the Range Busters.
If you’re ever feeling nostalgic for B-westerns, the outstanding Old Corral website is a must visit.
Barry Ergang © 2011
Winner of the Short Mystery Fiction Society’s Derringer Award in the Flash Fiction category, Barry Ergang’s work has appeared in numerous publications, print and electronic. For links to material available, see Barry’s Smashwords offerings http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/cassidy20
and Barry’s webpages
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