Louis L'Amour's 1957 novel Last Stand at Papago Wells is a favorite of mine, since I'm a sucker for "last stand" stories. Wandering cowboy Logan Cates takes refuge at the titular water hole and soon finds himself in charge of several other groups of men and women trying to escape Apache warriors. The group finds themselves besieged.
Toss a shipment of gold into the midst of this and Logan finds that potential conflict among the whites can be as dangerous as the Apaches.
I didn't know until I recently ran across it on Crackle TV that this book had been made into a movie in 1958, with the title changed to Apache Territory. Rory Calhoun plays Logan Cates.
The movie is a reasonably faithful adaptation of the book, though the number of characters is reduced a little and some of their relationships are shifted about. But the main action beats are pretty much the same. The Apaches send fusilades of bullets and arrows into the defenders, but are never seen. Cates has to sneak out one night to hunt for food. Slowly, the defenders are picked off. There seems to be no escape.
It's a good Western that generates a tense atmosphere throughout. Calhoun is quite good as Cates and the supporting cast is fine. John Dehner (one of my favorite character actors) is especially good as a man you just KNOW will turn out to be rotten even before he does anything to show us he's rotten. When Dehner played bad guys, he had a subtle talent for making himself ooze just a touch of venom in everything he does or says.
As is usually the case, the movie isn't quite as good as the original book. But it's still good and worth watching.
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