Bitter Creek - Al Cody (Archie Joscelyn)

Al Cody is the pseudonym most often used by Montana Western writer Archie Joscelyn, who also wrote novels under his own name and the name Lynn Westland. Joscelyn got his start in the pulps in the 1920s but became a lot more prolific during the Thirties, when he turned out stories for WILD WEST WEEKLY under various house-names in addition to publishing quite a bit under his own name. He didn’t start using the Cody and Westland names until the Forties, but over time, Al Cody became the best-known of all the names Joscelyn used, although he still turned out a lot of paperback Westerns under his real name.

It was as Al Cody that Joscelyn wrote the novella “Bitter Creek”, which first appeared in the January 1947 issue of the pulp WESTERN ACTION. He expanded it into a full-length novel which was published in hardback by Dodd, Mead in July of that same year. Without comparing the two versions, I don’t imagine Joscelyn had to expand the novella very much, since it occupied 50 pages of small print in the pulp. The novel version also came out in paperback from Pocket Books in December 1950. It was also reprinted in paperback by Avon in 1960. I featured the pulp in one of my Saturday Morning Western Pulp posts a while back and decided to read the novel, so I found a copy of the Pocket Books edition. That’s it in the scan, ugly sticker pull and all.

The protagonist, Clyde Cassel, returns to his hometown in the Bitter Creek country of Montana following the Civil War. He comes back minus the right arm he lost in battle and also without the girl he was engaged to marry, who up and married an old rival while Cassel was off fighting the war. Not only that, the same lowdown skunk also took over Cassel’s ranch while he was gone. So he comes home an embittered cripple . . . but it’s not long before folks are trying to kill him and the town boss—who may or may not be a crook—offers him the job of marshal. Cassel finds himself caught in the middle of a power struggle between this unexpected ally and his old enemy, and anyone who underestimates him because he has only one arm is in for a surprise.

The premise of this book—the hero coming home from the war only to find himself in danger because everything has changed—is pretty standard in Westerns, and in other genres, as well. Quite a few hardboiled crime novels from the late Forties and Fifties use the same plot. The appeal depends on the execution, and Joscelyn does a pretty darned good job of that, giving us a rough around the edges but still likable protagonist, some despicable villains, an unexpected plot twist or two, a well-done romantic angle that’s not too obtrusive, and a few characters who are hard to pin down. Not everything turns out the way you think it might, which is always a bonus.

Joscelyn’s prose had some occasional clumsiness to it that never goes away completely even in his best books, and that’s true in this one. But there’s some really excellent writing, as well, and the same sense of authenticity that’s to be found in Walt Coburn’s work. BITTER CREEK isn’t the best of Joscelyn’s novels I’ve read so far—I think DOOMROCK, POWDER BURNS, and THE THUNDERING HILLS are better—but it’s right up there close to the same level. I really enjoyed it, and if you’re a traditional Western reader and haven’t tried anything by Archie Joscelyn or Al Cody yet, BITTER CREEK wouldn’t be a bad place to start.