'Counting the Cost' tells Western love story

A handsome cowboy, a lovely damsel in distress and a love story that starts from a slightly different place than most.

These are the elements in "Counting the Cost" that keep the reader going throughout a rather thin story line with some cliche elements.

Heck Benham is the rugged cowboy who can ride a bucking bronco, rope a steer and still show up for a home-cooked supper in the cabin at night smelling fine.

Ruth Reynolds is the lovely heroine found stuck in the gully in her car as flash floods approach — not once but twice — by her white knight on his horse.

The twist to the love story involves Ruth being married (to a bully, of course) at the time Heck and she get together, something just not done by decent folk in the early West.

That makes for an interesting read and takes it from a typical Western novel to a story about people you could care about.

It's also interesting to see how life on the range works out for a rough cowpoke and a citified woman who gets understandably restless living in poverty.

Mormonism only comes into the tale toward the very end and not much headway is made, although "Parson Larson" makes friends with Heck and gets a chance to share some of the doctrine. Perhaps later, Ruth seeks out the church wanting to know more, who knows?

LDS storyteller Liz Adair does a fairly good job of telling this story, based loosely on some of her ancestors' actual stories.

She makes Heck and Ruth likable. The characters around them are pretty well filled out.

The story moves along: Ruth inherits money, Heck gives up rodeos, opportunity knocks, a baby dies.

But somehow, the story comes out uneven.

The reader is privy to a number of clashes between this couple but little resolution.

It's slightly unsatisfying throughout and particularly at the end. (It's almost as if the author said, "Oops, gotta wrap this up.")

Maybe Adair wanted the reader to go away thinking about these two because that's achieved.

It just doesn't make for a good finish after 335 pages of story.

E-mail: haddoc@desnews.com