Harpsong by Rilla Askew, $24.95
Using a story built on legend and history, Rilla Askew tells her version of the fabled life of Harlan Singer during the depths of the Depression.
Said to have been born in 1907, when Oklahoma became a state, and abandoned as a child when his mother died, Harlan is a handsome young man who makes his way by playing tunes on a mouth harp and later a 25-cent harmonica.
The novel opens as Harlan walks into the yard of the
Thompsons’ place, several miles out of Cookson, Okla. Cotton is the crop, but it soon becomes evident Harlan is more interested in the farmer’s 14-year-old daughter, Sharon, than in work. Within days he has stolen her heart, and they take off together.
Hitching rides to the nearest town, Harlan and Sharon find an empty boxcar and begin a life together riding the rails. Harlan plays the harmonica or sings in his high tenor voice for nickels and dimes. Sharon soon learns the danger of being caught by the “bulls,” the men who patrol the yards.
Traveling as far east as Georgia, then back to Texas and New Mexico, Sharon finds the life exciting. But with the onset of winter, the cars become more crowded and more dangerous, and she takes to dressing like a boy.
When they are run out of a squatters’ camp, Harlan “turned different,” and so does his music. He is obsessed with finding someone named Profit, a man Sharon is not sure exists. She becomes pregnant, loses the baby and is too sick to travel.
Labor riots are going on across the country in 1934 as Harlan and Sharon continue to ride the rails. Somewhere in Texas, the “bulls” pull them off the top of a boxcar. Harlan is beaten and left for dead. After that, traveling becomes even more difficult. The terrible heat and dust are said to be signs that the world is about to come to an end.
By 1935, Harlan and Sharon show up in a coal mining town where the company is shutting down the mines and a strike is in the offing. A woman with the union who seems to be in charge is trying to bring order to the chaotic meeting when Harlan steps forward. And with banjo in hand, he turns the lit-
any of miners’ miseries into a haunting song. The sheriff arrives, set on arresting Harlan, just as Sharon steps in. And they disappear.
“Harpsong” is a beautifully told, often poetic tale of the misery endured by ordinary people during extraordinary times.
Texas Showdown: Two Texas Novels by Elmer Kelton, $24.95
“Pecos Crossing,” the first of the two novels and originally published in 1963 as “Horsehead Crossing,” opens in 1890 as Johnny Fristo and Speck Quitman, two young cowboys and friends, ride into a West Texas town.
After spending the winter in a cow camp working for a cow trader named Larramore and anxious to be paid, they confront him in one of the town’s bars. When he tries to brush them off, the cowboys cause a stir and end up spending the night in jail. But the next day, still without the pay owed them, Fristo and Quitman go after Larramore.
Quitman’s quick temper gets the better of him, and in his frustration, he accidentally kills the bride of former Texas Ranger Milam Haggard. And from that moment on, Quitman becomes a hunted man. A well-told tale of the price paid in the pursuit of vengeance.
The second novel, “Shotgun,” originally published as “Shotgun Settlement” in 1969, concerns a group of small ranchers in West Texas who have been outsmarted by rancher Blair Bishop. They decide to join Macy Modock, recently released from prison for cattle rustling, to see justice done.
Using dubious legal means and a good share of violence, they proceed to go after Bishop. The hunt grows violent. The love interest between Bishop’s son and the daughter of one of the small ranchers further complicates matters. Though the novel moves at a good pace, “Shotgun” is not one of Kelton’s better stories.
Sybil Downing is a Boulder novelist who writes a monthly column on new regional fiction.
