Synopsis
In a tale that captures the brutality, heroism, and hardships of the Old West, Cat Brules, a tough plainsman, pursues a one-man battle for revenge against the Comanches. A first novel. 60,000 first printing. $60,000 ad/promo. Tour.
Reviews
Impressive scope and vivid detail don't redeem this violent and misanthropic novel of a killer's journey across the Old West, by the author of Kill Devil Hill (1979). On a Colorado ranch in 1916, the elderly Cat Brules tells his story to a college-age listener. He begins in Hays City, Kans., where in 1867 he has just quit his job and plans to rob a Texas bank with his old friend Pedro. Brules has a night of wild sex with a prostitute named Michelle; returning to her room on the following night, he finds his former boss beating the woman. Brules kills him and must flee Hays City with Michelle. After traveling several days with little food or water, they cross paths with Pedro and decide to follow his trail markings southward. Comanches soon capture Brules and Michelle, torturing him and roasting her alive. Brules shoots his way out of the camp, only to find Pedro's remains further down the trail. He begins an Indian-killing spree to avenge his two friends' deaths, but after a Shoshone woman named Wild Rose nurses him back to health following a grizzly bear attack, his opinion of Native Americans changes. Brules and Wild Rose marry, have a daughter, and build a cabin. After a horse tramples his wife to death, Brules gives their child to the care of the Shoshone and lives the rest of his life in solitude. Many unnecessary digressions make this novel far too long. Its violence, moreover, is off-putting: Combs clearly intends Brules's hatred of Indians to reflect Old West attitudes, but the fugitive's racism becomes grating over the course of 500 pages; the 100 pages of domestic bliss following his marriage to Wild Rose cannot change the protagonist's brutal image. The bloodshed and bravado may thrill some shoot-'em-up enthusiasts, but this story is as flat as the western desert. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Before World War I, when 11-year-old Steven Cartwright was riding near his father's Colorado ranch, he encountered an old man living alone on Lone Cone Peak. Though the two barely exchanged a glance, the boy was fascinated and went out of his way to cross paths with the man again. A tentative relationship formed and came to fruition years later when the boy returned home on summer break from college. Through one long, lonesome mountain night, Cat Brules bared his soul to Steven, recounting his long, eventful life as a cow puncher, Indian fighter, gunman, and lover, from an 1867 cattle drive to Hays, Kansas, to the death of his beloved Shoshone wife, Wild Rose, in 1891 at the cabin where he still lives. This entertaining--if lengthy--saga of the Old West is enlivened by Brules' gallows humor and his stoic acceptance of life's vagaries. What sets the novel apart from the usual fare is its wide-ranging scope and the fact that first-time novelist Combs, an aviation pioneer and author of an award-winning study of the Wright brothers, is past 80. Yes, you can expect plenty of marketing hoopla designed to turn Combs into a cowboy version of Helen Hooven Santmyer, the octogenarian author of ".ÿ20.ÿ20.ÿ20And Ladies of the Club," the surprise best-seller of 1984. Like Ladies, Brules began life as a small-press title (Lyford Books, 1992), only to be picked up later by a major trade house. Marketing campaigns and Combs' age aside, the novel stands on its own quite well. Brules is a memorable character--sometimes admirable, sometimes not, but imbued with a sense of humanity that can only be gained through a lifetime of experience. Wes Lukowsky
Cat Brules takes up his story in 1867 as a young hellraiser just off a cattle drive to Hays City, Kansas. He kills a man in a bordello and flees through Comanche country. Captured and tortured, he escapes, later losing his best friend to the Comanche. From there, the story is mainly about Brules's prowess as a killer of Indians, but in between the cold-blooded carnage he ably describes the almost mystical attraction of the glorious Western wilderness from Texas to Montana. He sees the demise of the buffalo herds, destruction of the Plains Indians' way of life, and the gradual introduction of civilization. A violent, brutal but well-written view of Western history. Combs, an aviator since 1928, is author of Kill Devil Hill (TernStyle, 1989).
--Edwin B. Burgess, U.S. Army TRALINET Ctr., Fort Monroe, Va.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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