Title: Great Medicine
Author: Steve Frazee
In: The Mammoth Book of Westerns (Jon E. Lewis)
Rating Out of 5: 3.5 (Liked this)
My Bookshelves: Westerns
Dates read: 17th September 2020
Pace: Slow
Format: Short story
Publisher: Robinson
Year: 2013
5th sentence, 74th page: He looked at his medicine then, solemnly.

Little Belly thinks that the white men have great medicine. So he steals it. Things go downhill from there…

I like that this short story touches upon issues of power, medicine and mercy. How power can be a number of things. And the symbolic importance people attach to objects in order to understand the division of power.

Having said that, I really didn’t get sucked into this. I’m truly understanding the fact at this point that although I’m going to finish the The Mammoth Book of Westerns collection, I’m really not that into Western short stories. I just find them a bit “eh” to follow and sink into.

This may not be my favourite short story. But it’s also not my least favourite, and not that bad either. It was just a pleasant, albeit forgetful twenty minutes to wile away the hours.

<- A Man Called Horse

Emmet Dutrow ->

Image source: Hachette Australia