The Hired Gun

In 1959, western Canada was only half a century removed from the old west already being commemorated in books and in the movies and television series. Cowboys and oilmen dominated the popular imagination in a rural economy of small towns surrounded by small family farms. The culture was in gradual transition, with an eye to the future but with one foot planted firmly in the previous century. The new mythology of the old west fueled the imagination of every child bored by an uneventful hot and dry Alberta summer. It’s 1959. Three 12 year old boys. Two 12 year old girls. Summer is boring in a small Alberta town. A mysterious stranger arrives in a big black car. A hired gun, the kids think, a hit man. Life has become more interesting. The kids follow the stranger. A boy is murdered. A prominent shopkeeper is murdered. The kids tell Tom, the town Mountie, their suspicions. Tom seems not to believe them. There are rumours of major fraud at the local coop store. The kids follow the stranger and the coop manager. And then…