Having read prior works by Robert M. de la Torre, I already
had my expectations set high for some enjoyable short stories. To no surprise “Bullion” Bob: A Trilogy brightened up my morning because of the very colorful characters, Bob, along
with his cohort Trappy, and his donkey Limelight, personified at times always
loyal and stout.
Set in the Mohave Desert, the first story titled “Bullion” Bob began with a very dry Bob;
a man scratching his way in the desert sand, at the point of near death when
his life is saved by Trappy finding him and bringing a canteen of water. Trappy, known by the Indians for his good
trading pelts, has a way with the Indians, knowing their customs and
language. All this blends into a mix of
moments where these “gruff and salty guys” shuffle through life in search of
striking it rich, encountering colorful characters and quite extraordinary
situations of an “Old West Cowboy” calamity of events.
“Bullion” Bob is
not the type of book riding the coattails of a Louis L’Amour western, but
rather keeps to a pace analogous to a Western
TV series. Robert M. de la Torre has
a very light, brisk and at times discombobulated story telling technique. I’d say he has the style one would expect
when sitting around a campfire, eating cowboy beans and passing the whiskey,
watching the embers of the fire float into the sky becoming hidden by the
stars, as he tells his stories embellished by the impact of the harsh
environment.
The first thing that caught my attention was the original
cover art by Jeffery Johnson showing a cowboy propped up against a cactus (a
rather uncomfortable back rest, if you ask me) along with a broken wagon wheel,
a coyote and a dried up skeleton indicating death by dehydration. This picture is a marvelous cover design for
what the galley text conveys. Like the
early black and white Saturday morning TV shows of the late 1950’s and 60’s,
the story has the basic characters of the quintessential sheriff, bad guys,
western women, thieves and scoundrels. Events
move quickly as our hero, Bob, becomes the “pin-ball” within a western world
flipping him up to the action while gravity is bringing him down to reality,
bouncing him against the bumpers of others interacting with him and falling
into extra points of enjoyment with lights flashing within the reader’s mind of
humorous imagination. “Bullion” Bob is seriously
good clean fun for a Saturday morning light reading pleasure, or any time for
that matter.
This book is simply great fun – like a comic without the
pictures, something good to give a youngster going on a trip or as something to
put next to his Toy Story “Woody”
cowboy doll, as it reads as a good bedtime story, over and over again, a
pleasure for kids of all ages.
Buy this book at Amazon.com
