Longarm and the Tascosa Two-Step

This February 2007 Episode in this long running series,starting in 1978,finds Longarm in Tascosa,Texas ;trying to protect Judge Cain who has been brought to town to hold a murder trial on the son of a notorious outlaw.Threats on the Judge's life abound ,but the Judge ,Longarm and a few appointed deputies are intent on the trial taking place. There must have been many different writers who have penned these tales under the Tabor Evans name,because writing style varies greatly among them. I've never been able to find out which writers wrote which episodes;it would be interesting to know. Anyway;this episode is by far one of the most different styles I've read so far. The storyline is so simple and I've basically covered it all in my first paragraph. What is so different in this episode is the writing style,use of language , verbage , and descriptive expressions. Like I said, the storyline is almost non- existing;but the writer 's colorful style makes it a delightful read. One minute he is pulling words out of his hat that leave you wondering;such as,porcine,quirt,unctuous,prevarication,and the next minute he is making up words that are phonetic spellings;such as,wherah,eithur,as farah as ah'm concoined,yorah,etc. Some of these words will have you looking for a dictionary;some you'll find others...well! Picturesque language is sprinkled on every page.How about this: "Don't think the man would've talked even if I'd of let them rip his fingers off with white-hot horseshoe thongs." "The pale death's-head moon he'd seen the night before no longer filled the sky and stared vacant-eyed down on Tascosa." "Smelled like a manure wagon in July.Man must have a rotten gut ,or maybe somethin' died inside 'im." "God Almighty,when he swelled up,turned black from the neck down like one massive bruise,went to shakin' and leakin' blood all over the place from his ears,eyes,nose,and such,sight came nigh to makin' me sicker'n a broke-dicked dog." This tale doesn't have much in the way of shoot-outs ,barroom brawls,hardships of desert survival,encounters with Mexicans or Indians or a lot of the other sort of stuff we get in this Series;but what we do get is some splendid speechifying,beligerent bombast,taunting threatmaking and delightful descriptions to keep the story lots of fun. Poor old Curtis is at about his wits end with all this nonsense ,when who should show up, but his old showbusiness friend Lila Crabtree .This ended up providing an opportunity for them to do some two-stepping themselves while awaiting the trial. Far from a typical Longarm saga;but enjoyable,nonetheless. The cover on this book left we somewhat disappointed. There are several excellent characters in the story who would have been great to see portrayed on the cover. The portrait of the old gent with the beard doesn't in any way resemble the Judge, the lawyer Racehorse Parker was very colorfol and would have been great,Rufus, too.I guess we can accep