Way of the Lawless, Max Brand

Often in my blog, I lament the fact that many of the inexpensive books on Amazon lack the capability of tabbing through chapters. Until this book, I had never run into a Gutenberg book that also lacked this feature. Being unable to tab through a book is horrible. What's worse, is that this book also lacks a table of contents. So, there is no easy way to maneuver around the book. So, definitely there's a thumb down for this reason. However, it is a free book found at Gutenberg.org.

Essentially, this is the tale of a boy, Andrew Lanning, becoming a man and an outlaw on the same day. He sees a girl, falls in love with her, and shortly thereafter, gets in a fight with a man. He very nearly kills that man and makes his escape from the law. In doing so, he kills one of the deputies sent after him.

He becomes friendly with a group of outlaws, but does not become one of them.  He's killed once, and is afraid of having his soul corrupted by killing again. He therefore does what he can outside of the law to avoid killing those who are gunning for him. He shoots them in the legs or the arm, and thus he manages to avoid killing again.

The one hunter who is after him is Marshal Hal Dozier. That marshal is relentless. Even though he is shown to be outclassed by Andy, to not have any anger at him for killing his brother, he swears that he will never give up on the hunt even after being saved by him from Andy's murderous gang. However, he comes up with a plausible exit for Andy: dress up as a hobo and get out of the region. The marshal, meanwhile, would get a pardon for Andy and help him hook up with the girl, Anne, whom he'd fallen in love with in a single look at the start of the book.

There is a kick of humour at the end when the marshal offers the plan to Andy when Andy is considering the plan:

"Well," said Hal Dozier faintly, "what can you do with a man who don't know how to choose between a horse and a girl?"

 The book ends here, but let's assume he goes with Hal's plan.

I enjoyed the book. It does not have the luxuriant descriptions that I found in Zane Grey's books. At the same time, I didn't have to grapple with some of the gaudy descriptions of alpha males and females. Although Andy is the man's man alpha male of both strong moral character and unbridled spirit, it is not overwhelming.