First Line Today

I know that I said it'd be thriller's all year, but I tried to rationalize reading a western by Louis L'Amour by saying to myself that these were the progentitor of the modern thriller. Sadly, Lando might not have been the best foundation for a successful thriller. That being said here is the first line.

We Sacketts were a mountain folk who ran long on boy children and gun-shooting, but not many of us were traveled men. And that was why I envied the Tinker. 

When first I caught sight of him he was so far off I couldn’t make him out, so I taken my rifle and hunkered down behind the woodpile, all set to get in the first shot if it proved to be a Higgins. 

Soon as I realized who it was, I turned again to tightening my mill, for I was fresh out of meal and feeling hunger. 

Everybody in the mountains knew the Tinker. He was a wandering man who tinkered with everything that needed fixing. He could repair a clock, sharpen a saw, make a wagon wheel, or shoe a horse.

L'Amour, Louis - Lando (The Sacketts)

I read a lot of L'Amour books when I was a teen, but eschewed the Sackett's. I think it's an interesting range of characters that L'Amour invented, but I just never glomed onto them. I should have stayed away.