Six Bits a Day (Hewey Calloway)

This "prequel" to The Good Old Boys is more light hearted and free than that book or The Smiling Country, both of which follow the life of Hewey Calloway. The time period is 1889 in West Texas and jobs are hard to come by, so when you found one you accepted what the ranch owner was willing to pay, in this case six bits. This is your usual Elmer Kelton book with all the events and activities one would find in any western--rustlers, and outlaws, and evil men bent on destroying society. One of his best books.

This was the last of the Hewey Calloway novels to be written but ,chronologically ,it comes first in the trilogy. and should be read before the other two books in the series , " The Good Old Boys " and " The Smiling Country". A youthful Hewey and his younger ,more staid brother Walter venture into West Texas in the late 1880's in search of work ,having been orphnaed following the death of their father.the find nought but slim pickings ,work being hard to come by .Hewey enjoys the cowboy way of life but rairoads have signalled the death of the long traail drives and they are looking for ranch based work .Walter, a more pragmatic type , aspires to marry and settle into domesticity and has an altogeher tighter grip on a dollar than the gregarious and free spending -when he has any money-Hewey . They make friends with a Ranger ,Len Tanner and this stands them in good stead when they are engaged by two men to run cattle ,which turn out to have been stolen .It is only Tanner's intervention that saves thenm from summary execution as cattle thieves and helps them secure work with C C Tarpley ,the legitimate owner of the cattle in question .The only bugbears for Hewey are now the enmity of the esacped rustler Smith who has sworn vengeance on him , his brothers' increasing affection for Eve , a waitress in a boarding house where they briefly resided and an escalating feud between his employer and Jessup a neighbouring rancher.He gets a taste of the trail drive life when sent on a trip to San Antonio to bring back some cows ,in the charge of the cantankerous but good hearted Padgett and on the drive they befriend a discharged black cavalryma,Gabe and become embroiled in erace tension and an a potential range war. It is an episodic novel ,warm and open hearted in tone but unafraid of touching on some serious issues such as racism and the changing economic situation in the West in which cow punchers are more often than not pawns in the hands of unreasonable and parsimonious ranchers .Hewey is the dominanat figure in the book and an untypical Western hero-guns are not his forte and he is a fun loving ,hard working uncomplicated man who loves his life while knowing petrfectly well that his world is changing and will not long endure.The humour in the book is a key feature and helps make this a Western likely to appeal to people who have little or nothing in the genre previously

An excellent read. Read it from front to back in two days time. Elmer Kelton should be considered a Texas treasure. Comparable reads for 2007: The Pumpkin Roller,by Elmer Kelton; The Longhorns, by J. Frank Dobie; and The Lonesome Gods, by Louis L'Amour.

Not much of a 'mystery' but a fun ride -- pun intended -- through the old West. I enjoyed the trip.