Thursday 22 June 2017

THE ARIZONA KID by ANDREW McBRIDE



Up until April 2017 I had 2 acclaimed western novels, THE PEACEMAKER – published by Sundown Press as a paperback and e.book – and SHADOW MAN published by Crowood Press as an e.book – available to buy.
Reviews of THE PEACEMAKER:
‘A great book’ Spur award-winning and Pulitzer Prize-nominated author ROBERT VAUGHAN
For pure writing style, McBride’s gritty prose nails the time and place of his story with bold authority. …this relatively new author has thoroughly, and rightly so, claimed his place among the top Old West storytellers.’ RALPH COTTON (also a Pulitzer-Prize nominated novelist.)
SHADOW MAN: ‘A little masterpiece waiting for you to turn the page.’
Well, now 7 out of 8 of my western novels, (all but CIMARRÓN) which were originally published as hardbacks and paperbacks have been re-issued as e.books. Five, including SHADOW MAN, have been published by Crowood Press. The other Crowood Press e.books are CANYON OF THE DEAD, DEATH WEARS A STAR, DEATH SONG and THE ARIZONA KID. They too have received acclaim. I’ll be blogging about them separately over the coming weeks.
Today I discuss THE ARIZONA KID, which was the fourth of my westerns to be published.

It took me a couple of novels to find my stride and my ‘voice’ as a novelist. By THE ARIZONA KID I’d achieved that. I’d found a stripped-down writing style I liked and I was also lucky enough to stumble into a strong plot idea – basically a character who betrays those around him when he takes a job just for the money, a Faustian bargain that causes him personal grief in the long run. As a consequence I think THE ARIZONA KID is the best written and most focused – and the best overall – of my first 5 novels.

THE ARIZONA KID BLURB:
When former hired gun, Calvin Taylor, took the job of sheriff of Oxford County, New Mexico, it was for one reason only – to catch, or kill, the notorious Arizona Kid, and pick up the fifteen hundred dollars reward the governor had secretly offered.
Blood money, some called it, and pinning on a sheriff’s badge set Taylor against the woman in his life and the community in which he lived. He found himself on the trail of the infamous gang known as the Regulators, hunting down a man who’d once been his friend.
And as this trail wound deeper into the wilderness, into the hell-on-earth that was the White Sands, the pursuit became, in every sense, a journey of death.

All 8 of my westerns are set in the territories of Arizona and New Mexico in the 1870s and 1880s. All feature CALVIN TAYLOR as the central character – former Indian scout turned man hunter, Wells Fargo agent, Range Detective and sometimes sheriff.
Anyone familiar with western history will have no difficulty in recognising THE ARIZONA KID as a fictionalisation of the story of BILLY THE KID (who once sported the nickname ‘The Arizona Kid’) and his pursuer PAT GARRETT, in eastern and south-eastern New Mexico in the early 1880s – events including probably the most celebrated gaol break in western history.


BILLY THE KID vies with JESSE JAMES for the title of most famous outlaw in the West, and remains a controversial figure even to this day, partly because a great deal of mystery still surrounds him. Even his name is still a matter of dispute. Was he really William Bonney? Or Henry McCarty? Or Henry Antrim? Was he born in New York City, or Missouri? When he died was he a 21-year-old who’d killed a man for every year of his life, or a 25-year-old involved in 7 or 8 killings? Was he an illiterate half-wit, or a man steeped in culture (particularly Mexican culture?)
I consulted various sources about Billy, from ‘The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid’ co-written by Pat Garrett and Ash Upson and published only a year after the kid’s death, to Robert Utley’s ‘Billy the Kid: A short and violent life’, ‘Pat Garrett: the story of a lawman’ by Leon Metz and ‘The Western Hero in Myth and Legend’ by Kent Ladd Steckmesser.
Billy has been depicted in numerous movies over the years, sympathetically and unsympathetically, from BILLY THE KID (Robert Taylor) to THE KID FROM TEXAS (Audie Murphy) to PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID (Kris Kristofferson – probably the largest actor to play Billy, who was noted for his slight size and build) - YOUNG GUNS (Emilio Estevez) and GORE VIDAL’S BILLY THE KID (Val Kilmer.)

 Val Kilmer
 A particular favourite of mine is THE LEFT-HANDED GUN (with Paul Newman) – even though Billy appears not to have been left-handed!

I haven’t seen Chuck Courtney’s performance in BILLY THE KID VERSUS DRACULA!
Fictionalisations have also been done, perhaps most notably in ONE-EYED JACKS, with Marlon Brando in the Billy role.

Almost as controversial as Billy was his nemesis, SHERIFF PAT GARRETT (1850- 1908.) Born in Alabama, Garrett was also a buffalo hunter and Texas Ranger. Standing 6 feet 4 or 5 inches tall he was nicknamed ‘Juan Largo’ (Long John) by Mexicans. 

He’s also been frequently depicted on screen: PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID (James Coburn) YOUNG GUNS (Patrick Wayne) THE LEFT-HANDED GUN (John Dehner.) An interesting Garrett film is FOUR FACES WEST (1948) which for once doesn’t focus on Garrett and Billy, but another aspect of Garrett's career.


Charles Bickford gives a quality performance in a movie about the pursuit of an outlaw into the White Sands area of New Mexico (an area of desolate beauty that also features in THE ARIZONA KID.)


THE ARIZONA KID EXTRACT
Calvin Taylor gazed at the ground ahead of him, studying the rocks and shadows on the slopes under the canyon walls, seeing nothing amiss. Then he felt the hairs prickle on the back of his neck and arms; it was only instinct, but it told him that his enemies were behind him. His back felt as wide as a barn door. He turned in the saddle and the shot came.
The bullet whined past his ear.
His instinct had been right, the shot had come from behind. He glimpsed over his right shoulder, a dark wisp of powdersmoke!
Taylor yelled. A yell with a lot of fear in it. He spurred the dun and ducked low as the horse broke into a run.
Another rifle cracked. Off the slope above him, to the left. His instinct had only been half right, he was caught in a crossfire!

To find out more, where to buy etc. see my Amazon author pages, Amazon.com:

And Amazon.co.uk:

REVIEWS OF MY WORK GENERALLY:
‘Tough, taut and elegant… characterised by assured storytelling… the Calvin Taylor books are quietly remarkable for their subtle reinvention of the western, eschewing clichés… the writing is powerfully evocative of time and place.’
Of THE ARIZONA KID: ‘Will delight fans of the well-told tale. The desert setting leaves your mouth dust dry, the violence is vivid… If McBride's stories can't bring the western back to life then someone better call an undertaker.
As I say, I’ll be blogging about each re-issue separately over the coming weeks. Watch this space!

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