Last Stand At Papago Wells: A Novel (1998) - Plot & Excerpts
Louis L'Amour was a big part of my childhood and I appreciate him for helping excite me to read and value stories. So my four star rating is in (large?) part due to nostalgia.Last Stand at Papago Wells is one of my favorites because L'Amour deviates slightly from the Western pulp formula. There are flashes of very nice pulp writing and some interesting characterization and passages about the landscape and history that seem to push against Western myths a bit. Chapter 2 seems particularly interesting in how it sets up the characters and how they come together at the well. The harsh and desperate tone, coupled with some melodrama, gave this story an almost noirish quality that seems absent in most of the L'Amour stories I've read. The Indians aren't developed, of course, but there's a minor attempt to make them interesting and not quite stock -- this attempt doesn't really flourish past this point though, which is unfortunate, but not unexpected. Also, the real villains aren't the Indians at all. The Indians are props rather than real characters, not unlike the inquisitors in Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum," which Papago Wells bears some resemblance to in terms of confinement, tightening space, and desperation resolved through a completely unrealistic deus ex machina. Naturally the story has to ultimately finish in classic pulp Western fashion, but its subversion and containment is interesting to me. I don't know that it is as bleak as, say, The Empty Land, but it beats the affirmations found in far too many pulpy Westerns. Pseudo-intellectual thought aside, I really just felt like some solid pulp from my childhood and this satisfied my craving perfectly.
So I got my Louis L'Amour fix this week and this one certainly fulfilled its purpose: a nice quick read between more "serious" reading commitments.Lots of characters in this one, so many that none were very well fleshed out but regardless, I quite enjoyed the story. It's actually pretty amazing how much L'Amour can pack into one small book like this but you can find many of the stereotypical western clichés here including the quiet, aloof stranger that has a need to protect folks that just don't know any better. There's also hotshot wannabes, greedy gold snatchers, romance, and a very good Indian battle that runs throughout the novel. Perhaps one of the best things I like about L'Amour's westerns is his respectful treatment of the various Native American tribes, especially the Apache and here we see them at their tactical best.I still have a dozen or so more L'Amour books on the shelf and no plans to stop reading them.
What do You think about Last Stand At Papago Wells: A Novel (1998)?
Western novel. Several small groups are drawn to Papago Wells because it has the only water within 20 miles and the Arizona desert heat is relentless. There they find that they must band together to defend against the renegade band of Apaches intent on their horses, guns and women. Hardcase Logan Cates becomes the de facto leader although he is challenged by several others.Western - Logan Cates knew the many ways the Arizona desert could kill a man. He had ridden the sunblasted dunes, tracked the Apache over barren lava beds, sheltered in the dry washes of this forbidding land. Above all, he knew a man needed water to survive. Cates rode to Papago Wells a few miles ahead of an Apache war party led by the vicious Churupati. There he met a dozen desert wanderers whom chance had led to the only water between Yuma and hell. There they came under siege by the Indians. And there they would make their stand--with little hope of living beyond the next day and only a hard man named Logan Cates to show them how to conquer their true enemy: fear.
—Ed
I read this when I was a kid and loved it. Even though I haven't read another western in years I still love this one now. It has everything that would have made a great John Wayne film and I can't understand how it was never made into one - the strong, silent hero who never betrays his feelings, the independent girl, and all the others who have been forced to take refuge at the waterhole, all with their own problems to solve in the face of the Apache threat. True pulp fiction at its best by one of the masters of the Western genre.
—Lindsey Brooks
I am reading through Louis L'Amour's novels in chronological sequence. He wrote 92 novels. This is my 16th one completed. I love L'Amour's writing. You can tell that he had life experience as a cowboy. But this one was not one of my favorite. It was a very different plot and style, which was refreshing, but he had too many characters with too much going on and too few pages to make it all work. The ending felt contrived and way too short. But it was still a Louis L'Amour western, so I enjoyed it. Just not as well as some of his others.
—Bruce
