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BrulesBy Harry Combs Most of the novel covers Brules’ teenage years and early twenties. He and his first girlfriend are kidnapped by Comanches. The Indians torture them both and kill her, but Brules escapes before they kill him. This experience, unsurprisingly, leaves a deep and bitter hatred for all Comanches in Brules, and he dedicates the rest of his life to killing as many as he can before they get him. He kills several Comanches, leaving a sign of a cat at each kill, and soon the superstitious Indians are mortified of this mysterious cat person. But then Brules decides he’s had enough, and travels to Colorado, gets mauled by a bear, and meets the true love of his life – a Shoshone Indian woman. They marry, have a kid, but don’t necessarily live happily ever after. The one major fault of the book is the device Combs chose to tell us Brules’ story. He invents an eleven-year-old kid who, in 1909, meets an old hermit in the Colorado mountains: Cat Brules. The novel is actually Brules’ narrative to the kid. The problem with this is that since we know Brules is still alive in 1909, he obviously survives all the harrowing events Combs conjures for him, removing all suspense. Nonetheless, it is a fine Western, packed with action and detail, and Brules is a memorable character.
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