“Pale Morning Done,” by Jeff Hull (Lyons Press, 352 pages, $14.95)
In Jeff Hull’s debut novel, Marshall Tate is running the 2,200-acre Fly X ranch, owned but rarely visited by his father. Marshall dreams of turning it into prime spring creek fishing. But his neighbors, the Klingmans, watch his progress with an eye toward litigation.
Before Tate began his project, he had worked as a guide with his friends, Molly Huckabee and Alton Summers. He is still known as one of the best in western Montana, but the commercial aspects of guiding bother him, and he welcomes the excuse of no longer having the time.
With the summer fishing season come Easterners, loaded with brand-name gear and money, eager to catch only fish big enough to brag about later. He and his friends watch with dismay as the owner of the local fly-fishing shop, known for cutting corners, sends out unregistered guides. And Marshall worries that the outbreak of whirling disease in another part of the state might affect local streams.
Confrontations between Tate and the two older Klingman brothers continue to escalate until one night, as Marshall and his friends are drinking beer in the local bar, a vicious fight breaks out that will change their lives forever.
“Lone Calder Star,” by Janet Dailey (Kensington, 288 pages, $24)
Janet Daily’s ninth book is about the Calder family, first introduced in 1981.
The family runs the historic 1 million-acre Calder Cattle Co. in eastern Montana. Known throughout the West as the Triple C, it can trace its beginnings to the Cee Bar Ranch in northern Texas. As the story opens, the family has received word that the ranch foreman at the Cee Bar has quit, perhaps chased away by trouble. The suspected instigator is the patriarch of the neighboring Rutledge family who made millions in petroleum and banking and may want to force a takeover of the Cee Bar.
Cathleen Calder Echohawk turns to her son, Quint. Because he grew up in the ranching business and, until recently, was a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent for the Treasury Department, she believes he is the obvious choice to fly down to Texas and investigate.
Posing as a ranch hand looking for work, Quint stops at the local café where he is warned against working for the Cee Bar by a man whom he later learns is a Rutledge. Later that night, the waitress at the café, Dallas Garner, tells her grandfather about the conversation she overheard. Neither are surprised. The Rutledges chased the old man off his ranch. Soon they will own the entire town and everyone in it.
Quint drives out to the ranch where he finds the horses gone and no feed available. When he returns to town to buy grain, he discovers the waitress at the café also works at the feed store. This time her manner is curt, wary. When he arrives back at the ranch, he is met by an old man aiming a loaded shotgun at him. A skirmish ensues. Sure the man has been sent by the Rutledge family, Quint is surprised to discover he and the old man, “Empty” Garner, are on the same side. He offers the man a job and a place to live. Within a week, his granddaughter, Dallas, joins them.
As the pressure to scare the Triple C into selling increases, Quint’s only friends are Garner and his granddaughter. The old man proves a formidable ally against the ruthless Rutledge clan. But it is Dallas who becomes part of his dreams.
Sybil Downing is a Boulder novelist who writes a monthly column on new regional fiction releases.
