Book
The First Fast Draw
First published 1959
Set in Reconstruction-era East Texas after the American Civil War, Louis L’Amour fictionalizes the life of Cullen Baker as a feared gunman returning to a region shaped by occupation, old grudges and postwar violence, where enemies force him into repeated confrontations.
Against the historical background of Emancipation and Reconstruction, L’Amour builds the story around suspicion, investigation, violence and the fragile reach of frontier law. His characters survive by reading landscape and people carefully, and the action is grounded in the practical realities of travel, work, weapons, distance and local authority.
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