The Trick Shot

The Nevada gold camps during the early years of this century are the backdrops for vaudeville and violence in Cummings's 13th western novel (after The Last Lawman). John Drake is a trick-shot artist in a traveling show who accidentally kills his fiancee during a performance. Driven by grief, Drake flees into the Nevada desert to wallow in remorse. Meanwhile, three escaped convicts kidnap a beautiful young Indian girl, Henie, and eventually cross trails with Drake, who then pairs up with Henie's brother, Tagee, to rescue her. This is a comical partnership, for Drake is mired in self-pity and Tagee is a greedy and arrogant caricature of the loyal and stoic Tonto. In the expected gunfight with the convicts, Drake and Tagee free Henie, get shot and still manage to leave two bad guys lying in the lava beds. The gang leader is wounded, but escapes. Henie nurses Drake back to health and stands by him when he becomes an unlikely town constable. Drake's gun nerve returns, and he builds his trick-shot confidence with some fancy self-defense killings. Show business soon beckons, however, and Drake, with Henie, rejoins vaudeville, where danger and redemption await them at their first performance. Marked by flat dialogue, unresponsive emotion and lackluster action, this is a melodramatic horse opera with a low pulse rate. (May)