By Glendon Swarthout.
Introduction by Miles
Swarthout.
Filmed as The
Shootist (1976), directed by Don Siegel.
Published by Bison Books.
First published 1975.
ISBN-10: 0803238231
ISBN-13: 9780803238237
Description:
"Such style...such a strong central idea...the
showdown is an unremitting as the build-up." – Sunday Times of London.
"This is an extremely well-written Western and gives
the reader vivid insight into the workings of the mind of a wanderer and
gunman." – Baton Rouge, Louisiana Sunday Advocate.
"The Shootist by Glendon Swarthout is the taleof the
Old West's version of the modern 'hit man'. It is a splendid story, well-told
and with a really satisfying ending." – Charleston, South Carolina
Evening Post.
The Shootist is John Bernard Books, a man of principle and
the only surviving gunfighter in a vanishing American West. He rides into El
Paso in the year 1901, on the day Queen Victoria died, there to be told by a
doctor that he must soon confront the greatest shootist of all: Death. In such
a showdown, against such an antagonist, he cannot win. Most men may end their
days in bed or take their own lives, but a man-killer has a 3rd option, one
which Books decides to exercise. He may choose his own executioner.
As word spreads that the famous assassin has reached the
end of his rope, an assortment of vultures gathers to feast upon his
corpse--among them a gambler, a rustler, an undertaker, an old love, a
reporter, even a boy. Books outwits them, however, by selecting the where,
when, who, and why of his death, and writing in fire from a pair of Remingtons
the last courageous act of his own legend. The climatic gunfight itself is an
incredible performance by an incredible man, and by his creator, Glendon Swarthout.
The Shootist will rank with such
classics as Shane and The Ox-Bow Incident, but it is much more
than a Western. When, in the final afternoon of his life, J. B. Books crosses a
street and enters a saloon to make something of his death, we cross, we enter,
with him. He is us.
From a corner of the south window Gillom Rogers spied on
the new lodger. The man unpacked his valise and put things in a drawer of the
chiffonier, then hung his Price Albert coat in the closet. When he turned from
the closet he was in shirt and vest. The boy's eyes rounded. Sewn to each side
of the vest was a holster, reversed, and in each holster was a pistol, butt
forward. As he watched, sucking in his breath, the man took the weapons out,
revolved the cylinders, filled a chamber in one he had evidently fired, and
replaced them before hanging the vest, too, in the closet. The pistols were a
pair of nickel-plated, short-barreled, unsighted, single-action .44 Remingtons,
obviously manufactured to order. The handle of one was black gutta-percha, the
other pearl.
Gillom slipped away to take the horse to the
livery, letting the breath of revelation out of his lungs. He was seventeen,
and spent much of his time in saloons. He was not yet served, but he enjoyed
himself and picked up a great deal of miscellaneous information, some of it
true, some of it of doubtful authenticity. But the man in corner room was no
stranger to him now. He had heard enough scalp-itch, blood-freeze tales to know
that only one man carried a similar pair of guns in a similar manner...
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