Nineteen SAWBACK CHANCES HIS MIND
This story is one of a pair, written at some remove from each other, that addresses a trip with a long-time client, Doc Kent and, with his new wife, Diana (Di). In this version, Sawback is skeptical at first, but is won over, as is Tex, by the woman’s “sporting” nature, good sense and ability to climb and hunt, reversing gender roles and winning the mountain mens’ approval for her ability to assume mountain masculinity. Di insists on first names (and an abbreviation at that), carries her own rifle through the mountains, refuses to give up trailing a gut-shot animal until she finishes the job, and skins it herself (thus getting properly dirty, of course). She is, therefore, a proper hunter, and a “reg’lar,” one of them: not just an honorary man, which would not yet be much, but an honorary mountain man. In the other, less charitable, version, “It’s a Woman’s World,” the female client plays it closer to the gender conventions of the time, refuses to climb or participate in the strenuous business of stalking or skinning, preferring to stay near camp; but she manages cool-headedly to bag three prime specimens within walking distance of camp, while Tex and Doc scramble up and down mountainsides to no avail. Her aplomb and success as a hunter win her the guides’ grudging respect. The Pipestone Letters, written in the middle of Tex’s writing career (1932–37), are characterized by a high generosity of spirit; some of the other stories concentrate more on mischief, low fun, or cussedness. A photograph of Diana standing with a rifle and a felled mountain goat on scree completes the story.
—AG and JR