We certainly don’t take pleasure in spoiling a plot twist when
discussing a novel—especially an exceptional genre novel like the
ones Tucsonan Johnny D. Boggs tends to write—but we sense that
letting everyone know they shouldn’t take the familial relationships in
Soldier’s Farewell at face value won’t hurt the enjoyment.

Very often, the blow that knocks you out is the one you only
perceive hints of—hints like the one revealed on the book flap of
Boggs’s latest: “When Julian Munro finally returns to Soldier’s
Farewell, he is not in uniform.” What kind of soldier doesn’t wear a
uniform when coming home?

In any case, Julian is a U.S. Army officer stationed at Fort Tejon,
an outpost in New Mexico in 1860. War is on everyone’s mind and tongue
as Julian’s father, Conner Munro, does his best to run the Overland
Mail Company station, which also serves as a relay station for a stage
line, in a place called Soldier’s Farewell. Named by the Apaches and
deemed a cursed locale by everyone else, Soldier’s Farewell consists of
nothing but rocks, dust and mules tended to by Conner and his teenage
son Smith, along with some hands. Julian gives his brother a birthday
gift, a leather-bound diary to record his thoughts and practice his
grammar. Julian provides lessons whenever possible—but there’s
not much time for lessons due to the rough nature of living and working
so far away from what can be called civilization.

At first, nowhere seems to suit Julian just fine, knowing that he’ll
be reassigned as a spy by the Army in the impending conflict between
North and South. However, things get murkier upon the arrival of a dark
stranger, Pinto. A Texan unafraid to speak openly about Southern
secession, Pinto makes everyone wary, especially Julian. He warns Smith
to stay away from the “killer,” a designation that resonates in Smith’s
mind, making him defensive and causing him to stick up for someone he’d
earlier described as “a raw-boned tall hombre.” After a conversation
about war sparks a near-duel in Soldier’s Farewell between two stage
passengers which escalates into a murder at the next stop, it seems
clear, at least to the reader, that Pinto may have played a role in
it.

Despite the “Dear Reader” technique of the diary entries, Boggs
adroitly manages, via Smith’s developing grammar and writing style, to
convey a suspenseful narrative arc in the same way an old Hollywood
Western like Shane reaches its ugly, inevitable conclusion.
Though Smith is no Shane (an innocent trapped in a fallen world), he
remains sympathetic—despite Smith setting himself up as the next
Cain right from the get-go (the book’s prologue) with a despicable and
epic pledge of fratricide:

Four years of hatred, abomination for my own flesh and blood,
four years of torment. Four years of watching this miserable stagecoach
station in the middle of nowhere turn to dust, watching me mutate into
fugitive and vagabond. Four years waiting for a war to end, waiting for
my older brother to dare show his face—never once accepting the
fact that he could very well have been slain by some enemy’s bullet, by
grapeshot, or fever, or maybe … a broken heart.

“How will Smith reach this evil mentality?” readers will wonder. The
answer lies in the expert way Boggs makes us look left while
maneuvering right, giving us a complex interplay between characters,
particularly in the tight yet strained love between Connor and his two
sons. (Smith and Julian’s mother passed away when they were babies.)
The dialogue is nuanced and succinct enough for a screenplay. We won’t
reveal everything, but the conclusion is equal parts darkness and
light, with bittersweet characters that include the U.S. Army,
Confederate treasure stealers and Apache raiders.

As you can probably tell, Soldier’s Farewell is a
less-traditional story than Boggs’ previous novel, Killstraight (about a Comanche detective hero), especially in its narrative
approach. (The parts where Smith scribbles in his diary while watching
action unfold may irk readers who cleave closely to utter “realism.”)
The best part about the book, though, is how Boggs eschews any
moralizing on the righteousness of “maintaining the Union,” opting
instead to let characters on both sides of the conflict show weakness
and strength.

Ultimately, Soldier’s Farewell is a tale of two brothers
falling far short of what their father expects of them, and what they
expect of each other. This is another fine novel by one of today’s
better writers of Westerns.

This article appears in Apr 16-22, 2009.