THE DEATHS OF THE BRAVOS

Out of 15 years of garnering wild and woolly yarns, John Myers, one of our best far-West folklorists, now tells the snappy slap-happy story of the Bravos, those stalwarts who rode roughshod through mountains and deserts, from the Mississippi to the Pacific, from the Pawnees to the Comanchees, and settled, or unsettled, (there were bad guys as well as good guys), the last frontiers. Chock-full of tall tales, of traders and trappers, of homesteaders and tin-star hopefuls, replete with big names (Kit Carson, Davy Crockett, Sam Houston) and small ones (Nat Wyeth, Jim Bridger, Jason Lee), the book chronicles one slam-bang event after another, beginning with Old Hickory himself and the backbreaking Battle of New Orleans, on and over into the Mexican Revolt, the Texas Rangers, Santa Ana and the Alamo, hubbub along the Rio Grande and Red River, ending after seventy-odd stampeding chapters with the demise of Wild Bill Hickok, ""shot in the back for a brag"", playing poker in Deadwood City of Deadwood Gulch, holding what became known as Dead Man's hand. And as a novelty in these anti-defamation days, the injuns don't come off too well: among other shockers, they ""unspeakably brutalized women"". Here we have, in short, superficial super-duper horse opera.