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5.0 out of 5 stars
Before "The Virginian" . . ., April 28, 2005
This review is from: Salvation Gap and Other Western Classics (Paperback)
These are Owen Wister's first western stories, written for Harpers Monthly in 1894-95, and published together under the title "Red Men and White" in 1896. Lovers of his novel "The Virginian" will recognize some of his themes in this collection and an early version of The Virginian himself in the character of Specimen Jones, who appears in three of the stories, first as a drifter and prospector, then as a soldier in the U.S. Army.
The Easterner who narrates much of "The Virginian" appears here, too, in a long story that takes him on a journey across Arizona in the rough, disreputable days before statehood. Wister's concern for the American character, which he finds much eroded among civilians in the West, crops up in this story, "A Pilgrim on the Gila." By contrast, we see his sympathy for young men on the wrong side of the law, only after it has been first lampooned in the satiric "The Serenade at Siskiyou," where the genteel ladies of the town attempt to lighten the hearts of two prisoners held for murder.
That story also explores the tensions between men and women in a frontier world where gender roles are rigidly different. This and one other story concern themselves with the occurrence of lynching alleged lawbreakers. Both of these themes emerge again dramatically in "The Virginian."
Many stories reflect Wister's respect for the disciplined men of the American Army on the frontier. Meanwhile, Indians figure in two stories: "Little Big Horn Medicine" and "The General's Bluff." The title story, "Salvation Gap," is a mining camp melodrama, involving the murder of a woman and the hanging of her lover. "La Tinaja Bonita" is a long story in a similar vein, involving a man's long journey across an arid Arizona desert, driven by jealous love and ending in death. Finally, "The Second Missouri Compromise" tells a humorous story of unreconstructed Southern politicians at odds with the Territorial Governor and his Treasurer, both northerners, in Boise, Idaho.
Wister was already a good storyteller in these early pieces, capturing in vivid detail the western terrain and the mostly squalid life of frontier towns and mining camps. While fascinated by the West, he does not romanticize it. He observes the excesses of unbridled independence there, while lamenting the absence of good sense and ethics among Easterners, especially politicians in Washington. He sees glimpses of character in a few men, mostly in uniform, and they will come together finally in the shining example of The Virginian some half dozen years later.
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