Gunsmoke, Before Matt Dillon
If you have ever wondered about the TV series Gunsmoke and about Dodge City then you need to read Trail Town. Ernest Haycox has put everything into this book that went on when the trail herds reached trail's end--the roisterous cowboys, the lust and violence of the saloons, the greedy merchants who wanted all the profits the cattle herds provided, yet wanted peace and stabilty. Sheriff Dan Mitchell found himself walking a tightrope between the "wide open" towners and the "closed" towners. How to keep a lid on a boiling pot without it exploding into violence and death was his problem. Each side had its own perspective and needs--gamblers, saloon keepers, cattle buyers, and the so-called respectable citizens, and the merchants who wanted red brick school houses and churches. It was Trail Street, or Front Street verses Main Street or Second Street. Dan Mitchell knew a day of reckoning would come, an explosion the likes of which no one could predict, and he knew he stood in the middle with both sides wanting him dead. If you have ever seen any of the early Gunsmoke episodes or have read any of the history of Dodge City, then you know what this novel dipicts did actually happen to whoever was trying to enforce the law at that time in history. Ernest Haycox's telling is superb, catching the very spirit of the time and place we know of as the Old West. No, he did not get to go into the depth of characterization, the social aspects, and the economic repercussions as deeply as he wished, as he was writing for the magazine market of the day which restricted such things and only wanted the action and adventure and the chapter pausing effects. Yet he did accomplish one fact: He wrote a fine novel. I encourage you to get this one.