Fingerprint

So here's the thing: that fingerprint could have been made 91 years ago, when this book was first published. Of course, it could also have been made just a few years ago, right before I bought it from Half-Price Books. (I can't remember when I bought it, but I know it's been sitting on my shelf for at least a couple of years.) But if it was made when the book was freshly printed . . . then that person is most assuredly dead now. And all that I will ever know about him (or her . . . but probably him) is that he read at least 205 pages of The War Chief. 

I'd noted previously that the tone of this book was vastly different from my first ERB Western, The Bandit of Hell's Bend. Here's a paragraph that kind of sums up that difference:

     "A sergeant, beneath a hail of lead, brought in a wounded officer. Twenty-five years later he was awarded a Congressional Medal, which arrived in time to be pinned on his breast by an attendant at the poor house before he was buried in potter's field."

Damn, is that some cold shit or what? It's also amazing to me that the way we treat our veterans really hasn't changed all that much in the past century. 

Must get back to the novel now. 170 pages to go, and I would really like to finish it tonight if possible.

And then read another ERB novel, of course. But I may be ready for a change up from the Western genre. I've been eyeing this thing on my shelf entitled Beyond the Farthest Star . . . .