The Last Free Range

Ritchie (Kerrigan) spins a likable yarn in this tale of the closing of the frontier. Times are tough. Ben Hawkins is only 46, but in Texas in 1886 that makes him one of the oldest cowpokes around. Though he's made a fair piece of change over the years, he's broke, having drunk and whored all his money away on paydays. When summer work on the small ranch where he punches cows dries up, he and two pals set out for the Rocking M Ranch, 150 miles away, on the slim hope of employment there. After scrapes with the law, the pardners arrive in the Pecos country only to discover that the Rocking M is more interested in hiring guns than cattlemen. The range is being overgrazed and now folks are beginning to string barbed wire and enclose what was once open grazing land. Although one of the boys signs on, Ben wants no part of it and rides on, but soon he's drawn into the range wars anyway, and on the opposite side from onetime friends. A good ear for dialogue and a sense of period detail add texture to what would otherwise have been a routine oater, and in Ben Hawkins, Ritchie has created an affable, world-weary and reluctant hero worthy of a sequel. (Oct.)