This was a competently written, if fairly routine horror-western mashup. It’s a fun quick read that never really breaks new ground or even lives up to the (admittedly high) standards I have for a piece Richard Matheson’s writing.
Matheson, for those that don’t know, is something of a horror godfather. He’s perhaps best known for The Incredible Shrinking Man, I Am Legend, and Hell House. His short fiction is incredible, and if you are a fan of The Twilight Zone than its very likely that he wrote one or more of your favorite episodes.
And while this book didn’t knock me off my feet or surprise me with a clever last page twist, there was a charm to its routine-li-ness and the competence of its delivery. The novel reads like a 1960s TV western with a well worn western “plot” and similarly well worn character archetypes.
Southwest Arizona, a century ago. An uneasy true exists between the remote frontier community of Picture City and the neighboring Apaches. That delicate peace is shredded when the bodies of two white men are found hideously mutilated. The angry townspeople are certain the “savages” have broken the treaty, but Billjohn Finley, the local Indian agent, fears that darker, more unholy forces may be at work. There’s a tall, dark stranger in town, who rode in wearing the dead men’s clothes. A stranger who may not be entirely human . . . .
Originally published as a mass-market Western in 1994, Shadow on the Sun has been out of print for years and was largely overlooked by horror fans and general readers. Now at last this forgotten tale of supernatural terror returns to chill the blood of Matheson’s many fans.
— Back Cover Blurb
This western tv feel is due in part to the narrative POV. Matheson writes in 3rd person limited for the entire book but head hops from one scene to another, utilizing his full cast of characters at different points in the novel. It wouldn’t surprise me if this started its life as a screenplay or an episode of Twilight Zone and was then adapted to be a novella. And perhaps that’s why it didn’t quite work as a novella and would have made a better movie or tv episode. You’ll find, if you ever try to write both, that what works well for the screen can read flat on the page.
Regardlesss, back to the plot…
The Army and the Apaches have finally made an uneasy truce after ten years of fighting, in no small part due to the efforts of Billjohn Finley, the Indian Agent. And it’s this timid truce that provides the larger emotional stakes of the novella. I really did care about the peace lasting and I really did care about Billjohn Finley.
Billjohn is an interesting character in that Indian Agents are typically the bad guys in westerns, or at a minimum, presented as corrupt and incompetent. Billjohn, on the contrary, really respects the Apaches and has a deep affection for them. This also gets him branded an Indian lover by the more troublesome town folk. Another common tv western trope.
The “monster” is almost like half breed Michael Myers without the mask. He just kind of wanders around, hardly ever talks, mogs people, and then leaves a trail of bodies slashed to bits in his wake, and disappears. While he is creepy, the townsfolk find it easier to ascribe the deaths to the Apaches because “muh waycism”. Only Billjohn suspects the strange man is responsible for the string of deaths. Also of note, the only words this strange man utters is that he is looking for Professor Dodge. This is ultimately our first clue as to who this monster is.
With Billjohn for most of the book is David Boutelle (sent from Washington to be Billjohn’s replacement). Boutelle is a fairly stock easterner, who thinks that Billjohn is a bleeding heart Indian lover, but eventually comes to see how the relationship he’s built with the Apaches is one of mutual respect.
SPOILER:
Billjohn and Boutelle eventually find the Apaches and Braided Feather (the Chief) and ask them to help them stop the monster. This is where the novella got pretty good in my opinion. The Apaches do a ritual dance and the shaman reveals that the monster is the resurrected son of Vandaih, the man-eagle, of Apache myth. From here they start piecing the puzzle together. Professor Dodge seeked out an exiled Apache Medicin Man (exiled for practicing the dark arts) named the Night Doctor. The Night Doctor resurrected the son of Vandaih, and he is now on the loose. Braided Feather gives Billjohn an obsidian blade with supposed magic powers to protect him. Billjohn and Boutelle than use the mutilated corpse of Professor Dodge to lure the monster to the cave of the Night Doctor. The Night Doctor literally does not care at all about what he’s done and casts a spell of protection on himself, leaving Billjohn and Boutelle unprotected and left to fight the monster themselves.
Weird West and Sword and Sorcery
I actually really enjoyed the end of the book and the presentation of the Indian Magic as real. This of course is fundamentally a Sword and Sorcery genre convention. Conan the Barbarian, for example, is a semi-realist hero, as in the setting is ancient earth but it assumes that ancient magic and myth was all real.
Weird West, as a genre, has over the years kind of warped and expanded to at times become a bit absurdist. Demon cattle herds, zombies, etc. But it is at its best when it is operating as a Sword and Sorcery story wearing cowboy clothes. This connection makes sense when you realize that Robert E. Howard created both genres. His Weird Westerns are all Sword and Sorcery stories set on the American frontier or the Antebellum South. Magic of black slaves and Indians typically unleash or power or reveal the monster.
On this front, Shadow on the Sun is a nearly perfect example of what a Weird Western should be. Its grounded in realism, but the magic and supernatural elements are presented as real and caused by some sort of sorcery.
Miss it or skip it?
If you like old pulp and REH style weird westerns than its a good read for sure. If not, then you can probably skip. It’s fairly routine and “ordinary” and not doing anything new. There is no signature Matheson twist that guts you or drives a philosophical point home. But it is competently crafted and a breezy pulp read.
Matheson was his own genre...