Butch Cassidy the Lost Years
Legend has it that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid died in Bolivia in 1908. Johnstone and his nephew flesh out a variant theory in which the Kid dies, but Cassidy, as Jim Strickland, shows up in west Texas a few years later. A dying man wills him his ranch if he will kill three rustlers. Strickland promptly dispatches the rustlers and hires on men to run a respectable ranch. But when a railroad worker dies because of company negligence, and officials renege on their responsibility to the widow, Strickland’s sympathies kick in. With his new Wild Bunch, he robs several trains, taking care of the widow; then he pays for a new church. Of course, he’s romancing the pastor’s daughter, Daisy Hatfield, and the question becomes, Will Strickland’s deeds catch up with him? The Johnstones offer nothing new about the Butch Cassidy of history; their Butch could be most any tough hombre. But they tell an entertaining story with lots of plot twists, carefully set up for a sequel. --John Mort