I visited Tombstone, Arizona on my last trip out west, and I will never forget the sun-baked desolation of Boot Hill, with its rows of lonesome graves, or the zombie barkeepers in the saloon, or the giant spiders. OK, so the town was decorated for Halloween, which not only made our visit extra-surreal, but may explain why I fell into Emma Bull’s fantasy western like it really might have happened this way: Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and a whole bunch of black magic in the old west.
Territory retells the weeks leading up to the O.K. Corral shootout, as seen by original characters who are newcomers and outsiders. Jesse Fox is a horse breaker on his way to Mexico when he gets sidetracked in Tombstone, where he not-so-coincidentally runs into Chow Lung, Chinese physician and the one man alive who knows what Fox is running from. I have a bit of a crush on Jesse Fox: a good man with a horse, sober, honest, speaks Chinese, plays poker to lose, can light candles with his mind. Mildred Benjamin, widowed Easterner with literary aspirations, also has a bit of a crush on Jesse Fox, even though there’s trouble wherever he goes. The first night she meets him, she find herself abetting a jailbreak.
Don’t worry, the Tombstone you remember from the history books (or the movies) is here too: all the Earps, Clantons, and McLaurys, plus a scene-stealing Doc Holliday as a sort of unwitting sorcerer’s apprentice. Magic is a powerful but hidden presence, threaded through the landscape like silver through the mines, with Tombstone as a vortex for power-hungry men who can twist its natural forces to supernatural ends.
Territory is more character study than shoot ‘em up. I loved it for its moody atmosphere, compelling characters, and screenplay-ready dialogue. The strong characterization and subtle deployment of magic make it a good fantasy choice for readers who don’t usually read fantasy, and a western for folks who don’t read westerns. It’s intended to stand alone, but if the story doesn’t end where you’d expect, you’ll be encouraged to know that Bull is at work on a sequel.
Check the WRL catalog for Territory
