Hanging Woman Creek
Hanging Woman Creek is set in an era of American expansion when the major conflict of the Indian population was not much of a worry. The bigger worry for most men on the frontier was other whites. Bandits were plentiful, and the law was dealt out by the people. The book starts out in Chicago, concerning a man who had just been released from an overnight stay in prison. This man is called Pike, and has a reputation for being a fighter. His reputation is not that well however, because it seems that he loses more fights than he wins. He is sitting with an African-American man and another man by a fire, Eddie and Van. He quickly became friends with Eddie, and realized that Van was more trouble than he was worth. He and Eddie hitched a train to the West, looking for jobs as cowherds. They reach a town on the edge of the frontier that Pike has visited in the past. He finds some friends and one that offers a job. However, this job is not a very safe one. It is to round up some cattle near an outpost on Hanging Woman Creek and stay there. Pike and Eddie find much trouble, and one man is shot in the back by an unknown assailant. Pike escorts a lady out to her brother's homestead, and a while later the lady's brother's est
This book was an interesting outlook on the Old West. It had some excellent action parts and some decent character development. On the other hand I would not recommend this book to most people because it is a slow read and very hard to follow. In some ways a reader might find it more in the genre of mystery. I would recommend the book to a person who enjoys stories about the Old West. In short, this book had some good qualities but it also had some flaws that stand out to an observant reader. One might think that this is a good story merely because it is exciting, as it has plenty of action. There are several gunfights and close calls. That is one of the good points of this story. There is a good amount of detail in the action scenes, and when a fight starts it is hard to put the book down. Pike is shown as having a great number of qualities, which he exhibits frequently. He struck a man sliding down a hill on a horse from four hundred yards with his rifle. This proves that at first he is more adept with a firearm than with his fists. about what was going on, sometimes with no real relevance. The author also stopped often to contemplate the meaning of life from the perspective of Pike. This was distracting, and made the book a very boring read. The book definitely could have used some more organization and a less complicated plot. Eddie was a very loyal friend to Pike, and they were friends until Eddie's death. They met at the start of the story, and stayed together. Eddie was a young man that wished to learn how to cowherd, and so Pike took him along. They rode a freight train together to Montana, and that is where they foun
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1122
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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