The Big Book of Western Action Stories

Sometimes, you really can tell a book by its cover. My hardcover edition is colored in red and desert gold blends and has got a picture on it of a tough-looking hombre, with a star pinned to his vest, firing a pistol with his left-hand and leaning against his horse's saddle and writing a note with his right hand ("rustlers cornered Red Gulch HELP sheriff").There isn't any story in this volume that corresponds with this picture, but who cares? It captures the flavor of the text well enough.Jon Tuska's collection of traditional Western action stories is immensely readable and made especially interesting by his running commentary. For the most part, these stories were written early in the 20th century as dime novels or as articles contributed to Western periodicals during the Golden Era of this type of story.While all of the tales have the satisfying "feel" that a good Western action story should bring, it's remarkable to observe that the "West" is more a state of mind than a geographic point of reference or a specific lifestyle. The stories are set as far east as Arkansas (which I would have thought of as a "Southern" state, as opposed to a "Western" one) and as far north as Montana.The characters from whose vantage point the stories are told include the usual assortment of cowpunchers, sheriffs, ranch detectives, pioneers, and gunfighters, but they also include a construction engineer and a banker. And although the era of the "Old West" is believed to have ranged from sometime in the middle of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th, there is actually one story in this volume in which our hero rides, not a Shetland pony, but one of Henry Ford's battered mountain cars (the villain of the piece, by contrast, is a rich kid in a blue roadster).The one common thread that seems to weave relentlessly through all of these stories is the omniscient presence of the "Code" of the West. The "Code" is more easily transmitted to the reader through these stories than summarized by any third person, but roughly speaking, it's a series of directives which mandate that promises be kept, that alliances be honored, that grudges be avenged, that individuals communicate plainly (because the difference between friend and foe might depend on the manner in which the other's words or gestures are taken), that obligations be paid, that rights be boldly asserted or forever lost to those who are bolder, that justice be done, that law be taken into one's own hands when necessary to do justice, that crises of the environment or of the spirit be faced head-on, and that (unless otherwise asked) one not pry into the business of another.On occasion, there is confusion over exactly what course of action the "Code" requires, such as in the first story of the volume where the protagonist must choose between warning a benefactor about a threat to his life and honoring the mandate that one mind his own business. But most of the time, the "right thing to do" is fairly clear