Hoss and his Pet... Mountain Lion?

 

The Whitman TV-tie in books from the 1960s are nearly always worth reading. The publisher hired excellent authors who faithfully captured the characters and settings of the various TV series, then told a great story that did not write down to the young target audience.

Killer Lion is a great example of this. The author, Steve Frazee, was a superb Western wordslinger who could always be depended upon to tell a good story. In this case, he begins the novel with Hoss Cartwright staying at a remote line cabin, waiting out the tail end of winter while he watches over a new herd of cattle his Pa recently purchased.

Hoss shoots a mountain lion, then finds the lion's cub nearby. The practical thing to do is to shoot the cub as well, but Hoss is the Cartwright brother who tends to bond with animals.

So, even though he knows its a bad idea in the long term, Hoss begins to care for the cub, naming it Rimrock. Rimrock begins to grow, but also gets used to being cared for and refuses to learn to hunt anything larger than mice. Eventually, Hoss takes Rimrock far away from the cabin and releases him, figuring the young mountain lion will learn to fend for himself if left with no choice. But Rimrock keeps finding his way back to the cabin.

The humor of the story is great--funny and natural to the situation and characters without being forced. But there are also effective moments of drama and danger, such as when Hoss's horse breaks a leg, forcing him to shoot the animal but leaving him lost in the snow with his eyesight fading because of snow blindness.

Later, the action shifts to the Ponderosa. Rimrock has followed Hoss home, forcing him to try to hide the lion from his father and brother. This plan fails spectacularly before long. Then things get serious again when a traveler is apparently killed by a mountain lion. A hunting party is formed, but Hoss thinks the death might have been deliberate murder made to look like a lion attack. The only way to save Rimrock is to find the real killer.

Hoss is the perfect Cartwright brother to take the lead in this story, because he's the one who would give in to (arguably misplaced) compassion and get himself into this situation. And Frazee expertly mixes comedy with drama, introducing real moments of danger and giving the novel an appropriate bittersweet ending.