RAY HOGAN – Outlaw’s Empire. Doubleday “Double D Western,” hardcover, 1986. Signet, paperback reprint, January 1987.

   Since Ray Hogan is a fellow who has written more than a hundred westerns, I’ll put off discussing his career until another time. He is a fellow who started out in paperback, however, beginning with Ex-Marshal published by Ace in 1956, but he didn’t make it into hardcover until Jackman’s Wolf (Doubleday) in 1970.

   From the little I know of his work, I would characterize it as being in the realistic vein, workmanlike and solid, and that’s a decent description of Outlaw’s Empire too, with only a few quibbles. One of them being the title, which seems to have little to do with the book, and the cover of the paperback, which is extremely nice, but it also does not have much to do with the book.

   Which is primarily a chronicle of the adventures of Riley Tabor, a wandering cowpoke who teams up with a fellow heading west in a grand army wagon, the fellow also being a grand womanizer – anything young in skirts – and therefore being considerably needful of having someone team up with him.

   Quoting from page 23:

   â€œBad business fooling around with another man’s wife. You make a habit of it?”

   â€œEvery chance I get,” Hale said promptly. “I believe in taking care of all women – married or single – as long as they’re willing, and most are. Spent most of my life working hard. No time for anything but work and study. Then I lost my intended wife in a fire. That changed my way of thinking. Figured life was just too uncertain, so now I pluck my roses whenever the opportunity presents itself – and so far it has been fairly often.”

   â€œThat rancher back in Dodge just about ended all that for you–”

   â€œNo doubt about that, and I’ll be eternally grateful to you for showing up when you did.”

   Riley made no comment.

   Adam Hale’s life does end quickly, and in very strange fashion, leaving Riley with Hale’s wagon as well as everything else he owned — his rig, his horses, and all of his personal belongings – along with a huge surprise. A surprise big enough that I cannot tell you about it, given the possibility that by either chance or happenstance you find yourself reading this book someday. Suffice it to say that unearned surprises have a way of catching up with you, and that’s what this mostly amiable but somewhat rambling novel, full of interesting people, is all about – building your house on sand.

   Or deciding not to, as the case may be. Not that Riley really has a good deal of leeway either way in the matter, which is perhaps why his story does not turn out all that badly in the end.

— Reprinted from Durn Tootin’ #7 , July
    2005 (slightly revised).


[UPDATE] 10-05-14.   Not having any other choice, but definitely wanting to show you the cover of the paperback edition, what I had to do was to take the black-and-white photo I’d included in that issue of Durn Tootin’ and colorize it into a monochrome facsimile of the real thing.

   I also note that I was being so careful about not revealing anything about the big surprise I referred to that I have no idea now what it (and the book itself) was all about. I seem to have liked it, though.