There Ain’t No Such Animal and Other East Texas Tales by Bill Brett (review)

232 Western American Literature On a book-jacket blurb, Wallace Stegner is quoted, “Mr. Decker knows as much about cowboying as anyone now alive.” He certainly seems to, for the novel is filled with short essays on such subjects as the operation of the meat-packing industry, modern and traditional ranch management, a mountain named Baldy, a dog that can’t quit chasing porcupines, a breed bull named Mussolini, a brockle-faced cow, a number of horses, and much of Chapter 3 is a letter from Lucy Howard, wife of Sam Howard, the protagonist, telling of her rewards as a ranch wife. Each of these sections is interesting and well-written but does little to develop either the action or the character of any of the people in the novel, with the exception perhaps, of Sam Howard. But the material reads as true as anything since Andy Adams. The plot of the novel is, indeed, a plot. Spencer Butterfield, owner of several ranches, one of which Sam manages, conceives a hardly legal plot to get the Mafia to attempt to rustle cattle by truck from Sam’s ranch. The ploy is successful, and the Mafia is drawn into the scheme but defeated by Butterfield, Sam, and Jake. Along the way, there is a roundup and some good ranch scenes, but the climax of the novel is almost totally anti-climactic. One is reminded slightly of Eugene Manlove Rhodes in everything but style. There is much nostalgia in this novel for the old days and the old ways of the West, and the “Holdouts” are those who continue to live in the masculine environment of the ranch. It is interesting that the novel ends before Sam Howard returns to his wife, Lucy, to tell her about the resolu­ tion of the situation. It ends with Sam’s shout to Will Michaels, a young cowboy who, like Sam, has been trained by Jake Scott, “The trouble’s over, Let’s go look to our livestock.” Unfortunately, this is not as good a novel as “To Be a Man,” but there are passages on ranching and the old days, and on dogs and horses, that are superb. DELBERT E. WYLDER, Murray State University There Ain’t No Such Animal and Other East Texas Tales. By Bill Brett. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1979. Ill pages, illus., $8.50.) In all ages and in all lands good story tellers are in demand. They are appreciated. And in a land which abounds with story tellers, Bill Brett is one of the best. Texas has enough story tellers to go around, but what distin­ guishes Brett from the pack is the ability to write down what he knows is so. That same ability formed a great deal of Mark Twain’s genius, and it is something not learned in formal schooling. That Brett can write is testified Reviews 233 to by the fact that his first book, The Stolen Steers, won the Cowboy Hall of Fame’s Western Heritage Award for folklore. He may be unschooled, as many outstanding writers have been, but he is not ignorant, having worked as a farmer, rancher, deputy sheriff, truck driver, roughneck and cowhand. Currently he is postmaster of Hull, Texas. This book has fourteen fine tales in it, stories that run the gamut of human emotion, aspiration and inspiration. The story entitled “Courting” has about as fine a conclusion as any around. It tells about the young man who tied his horse to his girlfriend’s father’s picket fence and was just heading for the gate to go in when one of the old dogs started barking. That frightened the horse, who bolted, took down a whole panel of pickets and caught the man up in the mess. He was “skinned up like a rodeo mule” and loaded with splinters. While the women had him spread out on the front porch picking out splinters, the “old man” passed by and said that anyone as “big a durn fool as I was didn’t need nothing but a jackass and a walking stick.” The girl flew all over her father “like a banty hen.” Until then he had no...