Reviewed by DAN STUMPF:         


ERIC ALLEN – Hangtree Country. Pyramid G-329, paperback original, 1958; 2nd printing, March 1965.

   The first work of a prolific western author, but I’m afraid Hangtree Country will stay in my mind primarily because of a dreadful gaffe by the publisher.

   Author Eric Allen hangs his plot on a familiar peg, then handles it with some distinction. As the story opens, Buck Caldeen rides into town and surrenders himself to the local lawman. It seems he just killed a local nasty, with some justification perhaps, but this is the outskirts of Fort Smith Arkansas, and he can expect little in the way of empathy from Judge Parker.

   Flashback to a year earlier, and Buck Caldeen is riding into town after five years of ramblin’ — the result, it seems, of a romance gone bad. Buck no sooner gets back to his old stomping grounds than he learns that his brother Rube is in Judge Parker’s jail for shooting a man in the back. Moreover, Rube refuses to say anything about the killing, and it looks like he will soon end his days at the end of a rope.

   Unless of course Buck can find out the reason behind it all.

   What follows is nothing in the way of the great western writers like A.B. Guthrie or Milton Lott, but it is a bit out of the ordinary. No gunfights, bushwhackings or barroom dust-ups, just a feel of quiet tension and emotional growth as Buck scours the countryside looking for clues, witnesses and what-have-you, finds himself relating to those around him, understanding why his old romance turned so bad, and finally learning what made his fine and upstanding brother shoot a man in the back — and why he must die for it.

   These are the central themes of Hangtree Country: Why did Rube do it? And How can Buck discover the reason? And it coulda been a contender, as they say. Unfortunately, on the very first page of Pyramid’s first edition, the blurb page, right inside the cover, we read:

   â€œUS CALDENS ARE PROUD MEN, BUCK,” RUBE SAID

   â€œMaybe we got too much Cherokee blood—but we feel a very special way about our women. I had to kill Murch after what he did to Sally — make sure he couldn’t talk,” Rube went on. “He ran and I put every slug I had into his back.”

   â€œIf anybody knows why I shot Murch, you’re going to have to kill him, Buck — kill for the pride of the Caldeens.

   â€œI’ve killed for it — that’s why they’re hanging me in the morning.”

   And there you have it. Everything the hero is trying to learn for more than a hundred pages, everything the reader should be turning pages to find out, all laid out for you before the story even starts. Well crap.

   I’ve heard stories before of publishers doing dirt to their authors, but this one takes its own unique place. And I’m afraid it spoiled what might have been a pretty good read.