The Outsider

with Thomas Curtis

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This is a Romance [with a capital R ... As one of the IMDb comments says: the kind of book that always has a picture of a flower on the cover].  But actually it was rather good.  Set in Montana in 1880, a widow with a 10-year-old son belongs to a strict religious community.  Amish or similar, although with roots in Norway.  A professional gunman, wounded, shows up on her land.  She nurses him back to health.  Of course you know how the story will end.  Both the woman and the boy are gradually drawn to the man.

When the man is well enough to sit at the table to eat dinner, he sees the boy is clearly reluctant to eat pickled beets.  When his mom goes into the other room, the boy asks... "You killed people? Is that what they locked you up in prison for?"  And he replies... "Prison? ... No.  That was because I didn't eat all my pickled beets."  So the kid eats them.

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They raise sheep, so the local cattlemen are trying to run them off the land.  By murder if necessary.  (That's why she's a widow.)

Although his mother is strictly opposed to guns, after one run-in with the bad guys, the boy tries to convince the gunslinger to return to his profession.

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"Can't we just shoot them?" he says, to the horror of his mother.

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