I had never heard the term “frontier mystery” until I read John D. Nesbitt’s Dusk along the Niobrara. It makes sense, though, for all those mysteries that fit the western trope of a stranger rides into town, cleans it up, and leaves again. In fact, when I was researching Nesbitt’s Dunbar books, every one of the descriptions of those novels begins, “The stranger Dunbar rides into town…”. For those mystery readers who want justice to triumph, these frontier mysteries, as slow-moving as they may be, are satisfying.

The narrator, Brad Montgomery, was a nineteen-year-old ranch hand when he encountered the stranger, Dunbar. Montgomery looks back at that short period of 1896 when he and Dunbar worked for the rancher Lou Foster. Together, they rode the Wyoming country known as the Niobrara, partnered with other ranch crews to build shipping pens, and worked the roundup. While they rode the land, they had plenty of time to talk about the landscape, philosophy and, even Oedipus. But, the young Montgomery also observed that the stranger seemed interested in murders that had occurred in the area, going as far back as fifteen years.

As in all westerns, there’s one group of bad guys. In this case, it’s Borden Crowley and his ranch hands. Crowley is a powerful landowner who appears to see everyone as beneath him, and his ranch hands adopt the same attitude. While Dunbar seems placid and slow to anger, he knows how to stir up the interest of Crowley’s crew. As he asks questions about a dead sheepherder, a horse trader who was lynched, and a murdered settler, he seems to attract attention. It’s the wrong kind of interest, though, because two other people end up dead before the final confrontation in front of all the townspeople.

Anyone who saw “Shane” knows the story of the peaceful man who rides into town. In this case, as Brad Montgomery looks back and summarizes the results of Dunbar’s actions, he says, “To me it seemed as if our area had been purged of a disease that we had not been much aware of.” It comes as no surprise to anyone who knows the trope of the knight, the stranger, who comes to town.

There’s quite a bit that could be said about the atmosphere in this novel, Wyoming and the ranch life. The cowpunchers themselves had the time to talk philosophy, as they rode across those empty lands. Sometimes, it’s just satisfying to read that story of justice, as in Dusk along the Niobrara.

John D. Nesbitt’s website is www.johndnesbitt.com

Dusk along the Niobrara by John D. Nesbitt. Five Star, 2019. ISBN 9781432858292 (hardcover), 237p.

*****
FTC Full Disclosure – I received the book to review for a journal.