L P Holmes' Night Marshal Western Novel

Hardcover edition of L P Holmes' Night Marshal- 1961

➽L P Holmes: Night Marshal

This Night Marshal western novel is the one that inspired this blog.  I read it when I was a kid and put it on the bookshelf, not touching it again for decades.

Then a few years ago, I was laid off for several months.  With lots of time on my hands, I snatched this off the bookshelf and re-read it. I fell in love with the characters and descriptions of the old west and the western vernacular.  So rather than watching television for hours, I entertained myself by reading western novels that I could get cheaply at the used bookstore. 

The paperback was already well worn out, but after reading it again and again, it's pretty much falling apart now.  Earlier this year, I decided to find a hardcover to replace it. I prefer the image on the paperback as it depicts an image of the rough area of the town the Night Marshal patrols--that is, Ute Street--while the hardcover only depicts a gun, gun-belt and star.  (The gun-belt's not even worn-looking.)

The story is a quintessential town-tamer yarn.  Actually, it's not even a town.  It's a mining camp. The day marshal is a town drunk who has seen better days.  He sends for a younger marshal friend to handle the night shift and to help tame the camp.  The younger marshal is disappointed to see his friend and mentor reduced to a drunk and unwilling to truly tackle the corrupting elements of the town.  In the end, the marshal does come through for his young friend and assists in shutting down the rotten part of the town.

It's not a typical mining camp as the miners are hardly mentioned; there's no feud between miners and cowboys as one would expect. Instead, it's the Ute Street bigshots versus the night marshal.  The night marshal's name is Chris Waddell.  He arrives in the camp with no money to his name.  The marshal's name is Frank Scorbie. After reuniting with Scorbie, Waddell is initially uncertain he wants the job. Pretty much no one in the camp respects Scorbie because he's both a town drunk and a marshal in name only; never crossing with the Ute Street crowd to whom he bows and scrapes. There's a good-natured gambler who befriends the night marshal (echoes of Doc Holliday). And there is a romance with the former retired marshal's daughter, Norma Vespasian. 

Vespasian isn't taken with Waddell in the beginning because of his friendship with Scorbie who she understandably despises.  There's a number of folks in the novel who are initially wary of Waddell for the same reasons.  I admire the way L P Holmes unfolds the change in the campfolks' attitude towards Waddell, especially in the interactions between Waddell and  Mike Vespasian (the former marshal) and his daughter.

The story includes some fist-fighting, gunplay, a robbery attempt, a vicious murder and the afore-mentioned romance.  It also includes much philosophizing and speechifying about life and what it takes to be a lawman: the physical demands, political challenges and psychological toll.

There was, it seemed, a critical point in the life of every man, when his destiny hung in thin balance and fate seemed to rear some kind of psychological barrier to challenge him.  If a man fail at this barrier, it meant a quitting, a retreat, and all too often such retreat was all the way into the bottle, in futile attempt to cover up, to blot out.

L P Holmes' is a master at describing sounds and sights to paint a realistic picture of places and his descriptions of people make you feel as if you are intimately acquainted with them. 

The mules stirred, leaning into their collars, tightening trace and chain.  The bells on the hame yokes of the leaders chimed musically and the wagons creaked into movement, swinging through a wide half-circle into a road which thrust straight at a barrier of timber.

They turned south into Ute Street and immediately moved into an atmosphere that made Chris Waddell swing his shoulders restlessly.  For here was 'The Gulch'.  Here, beyond an invisible, yet definite line, Midas Hill left all manners and morals behind.  Here was the camp's tenderloin, predatory, sinful, violent.  Here was a territory of human wolves and harpies, of dives and deadfalls.

This was the only western novel I had when I started, but when I hit Amazon and the used bookstores, L P Holmes was the first author I looked for.

Paperback cover of L P Holmes' Night Marshal

The cover does a fair job of depicting the rough part of the camp, Ute Street but it's not entirely accurate because it shows a man and woman who are apparently from the 'decent' side of town and per the novel, decent folks did not venture into Ute Street.

Back cover of paperback edition of L P Holmes' Night Marshal

Not all back covers do a good job of describing the contents of the book, but this one is dead-on.  If you like the description on the back cover, you'll like this book.

Inside cover of paperback edition of L P Holmes' Night Marshal

The inside cover describes the vicious murder of Chris Waddell's gambler friend.

Cigarettes lit up: 22
Cigars lit up: 11
Pipes lit up: 3
Gunplay: 2
Pistol-whipping: 1
Fist-fighting: 2

FAVORITE LINES:

"One thing is sure--he knows his way with a gun. And he carries a pretty tough rind."

"Maybe I won't fire easy."

"Keep on pushing and I'll throw you out!"
"A chore," taunted Waddell, "you could break your face on!"

"He's the kind who would take his mean out on a youngster."

"...my hunch was right...That a man had come to town."

"...I don't kill easy and I fight for keeps."

"Where the wisdom of the mind meets up with the emotion of the heart, wisdom suffers."


Hardcover published by Dodd, Mead & Company, 1961 - A Silver Star Western

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