Salter, Jeffrey L. Cowboy Out of Time. Clean Reads, 2019.

After reading Gilbert King’s solemn and often sad Devil in the Grove, I was ready for some lighter reading. Jeff Salter’s Cowboy Out of Time fit the bill nicely. The story revolves around small-town social worker Rose Roamer and an 1880s-vintage cowboy, Hunter Weston, who travels through time to protect her from some unknown danger. Salter wisely set the story in 1985. I say “wisely” because equipped as he is with a Colt .45 revolver and a bowie knife, not to mention outdated clothing, Weston would have drawn a lot of attention from law enforcement officers in contemporary America. As it is, a deputy sheriff drops the wandering cowboy into Rose’s lap at the end of a long work day, and lets her deal with him as she sees fit.

Salter brings a touch of amusement to the story as Weston tries to adjust to modern life and make sense out of such innovations as telephones, automobiles, and fast food restaurants. The cowboy is especially bewildered when Rose suggests the 32 silver dollars he brought with him from 1885 might be worth much more than $32: “You’re joshing me. Who’d pay money to buy money?” It is also amusing to see Rose and her uncle gradually change their attitude toward Weston’s claim of time traveling, moving from disbelief, to uncertainty, to acceptance.

But the amusement does not cloud the fact that the danger from which Weston came to protect Rose is genuine. She realizes this when an intruder breaks into her house and leaves behind a grisly warning. I won’t put any spoilers in here, except to say that Salter has created a supremely heinous and menacing villain. (This guy brings to mind Norman Daniels from Stephen King’s Rose Madder.) As Rose and Weston brace for his attack, their attraction to each other grows and some poignant questions take shape: What happens after Weston’s protective mission is fulfilled? Where will he go next and will Rose go with him?

Salter does not try to explain the manner by which Weston is able to traverse 100 years from his day and age to Rose’s. (A mysterious stranger named Merlin Vector engineers the transition, but he offers no insight into how it is done.) That’s not really a problem. No time-traveling story I’ve encountered from H.G. Wells’ Time Machine to episodes of Star Trek and the Twilight Zone explains it either. I was hoping that Weston would come across television, movies, stereos, and airplanes in the sky just to see what his reaction would be. That doesn’t happen in Cowboy Out of Time, but it may in a sequel. Salter has indicated this book will be the first in a series entitled Rose for All Time.

My editor’s eye caught a small number of errors in the writing. The most noteworthy was a discrepancy in the spelling of Rose’s ex-husband’s last name (“Snere” in some places, “Sneere” in others). But having found similar errors in my own published writings, even after thorough editing, makes it easy to be forgiving.