“Homesick Creek,” by Diane Hammond (Doubleday, 288 pages, $23.95)
As she did in her fine debut novel, “Going to Bend,” Hammond examines the limits of friendship and love in the small town of Hubbard, Ore. Here, sport and commercial fishing boats are moored in the small harbor, Highway 101 is the only through street, and everyone knows everyone else.
Bunny Near, a waitress in the diner, and Anita, once a local beauty contest winner, have been best friends since high school. Nineteen years ago, Bunny was a single mom of a 4-year-
old daughter when she met Hack Near, a Vietnam War vet who had been on the road for longer than he could remember. They married, and life has been good to them. Hack is a successful salesman at a nearby Ford dealership. They live in a nice house. But Bunny suspects Hack is cheating on her again.
By contrast, Anita and her husband, Bob, who barely get by, are still in love. But Anita worries about him, not so much because of his drinking as the mysterious trips he continues to take. And she wonders how they can manage to care for their granddaughter, whose father has been arrested on drug charges.
Hack enjoys using his charms on the beautiful new saleswoman who speaks fluent Italian and has an MBA from Stanford. But it is his nightmares about his lost sister, Katy, that distract his life. Back in the dealership’s service department, Bob repairs pickups and tells himself everything is fine. He just has a bad cold. The results of the AIDS test that his boyhood friend Warren took aren’t in yet.
As the story unfolds, Hammond digs into the past, revealing bad decisions and their consequences, desperate acts of courage, kindness that sometimes is not enough to save or redeem. And woven throughout are insights, sprinkled with humor, on marriage and friendship.
“Homesick Creek” is an honest, beautifully written book.
“Law on the Flying U,” by B.M. Bower (Five Star Western, 195 pages, $25.95)
From start to finish this collection of nine Bower stories, originally written in the early 1900s, is a charmer.
Bertha Muzzy Bower, the daughter of Minnesota farmers and a divorcée, became the first woman to make a living writing Western fiction. Between 1904 and her death in 1941, she wrote dozens of short stories, 15 hardcover books and a number of silent and sound films. No less than Charlie Russell, a friend, illustrated at least three hardcovers.
Each of the nine stories in this edition reveals the humor and love of the cowboy and the life he led that were Bower’s trademarks. And the Flying U ranch, with cowhands who called themselves the Happy Family, is often the setting.
The opener, “The Intervention of Almighty,” is a tale of tables-turned when one of the Family, out of the goodness of his heart, takes pity on a stray Canadian cow during a roaring blizzard and gives him hay.
In “The Land Shark,” Con Elliott is a big-hearted man whom everybody likes and calls friend. Yearning to marry his sweetheart and have a place of his own, he is on the lookout for a ranch with good range and water. When he spots the ad for a place that fits the bill, he is amazed at the low price, which, having recently won at poker, is one that he can afford. He marries his sweetheart and they visit what they believe to be their new home, only to discover Con was duped by the crafty real estate salesman in town. But, thanks to his friends, Con has the last word.
Then there is the adventure of Happy Jack in “Happy Jack, Wild Man.” A job with another outfit over, Happy Jack is on his way to rejoin the Flying U wagons. As he heads up a coulee that promises to lead him by the most direct route, he comes upon a river. To be on the safe side, he takes off his clothes, including his boots, ties them into a neat bundle that he fastens to his saddle. Naked except for his hat, he grabs the tail of his horse and urges him across.
But when the animal reaches shore, he fails to slow. Happy Jack loses his footing. The horse takes off for places unknown, leaving his master shoeless and in the buff with a 15-mile walk ahead of him. Gradually, an ingenious plan replaces Happy Jack’s panic. Its most important element: The Happy Family must never be the wiser.
Editor Kate Anderson’s choice of stories offers readers a wonderful sampling of well-written stories with endings as clever today as they were a century ago.
Sybil Downing is a Boulder novelist who writes a monthly column on new regional fiction releases.
