The First Death
by William M. James (Terry Harknett)
1974, Pinnacle
Apache warrior Cuchillo is discovered with a stolen knife, which he had traded for some horses. He refuses to defend himself, preferring to get his own revenge, and has two fingers removed by the corrupt military. Cuchillo gets vengeance on the man who traded the knife, and the military captures his wife and newborn child to force his surrender.
His wife is forced to serve a hundred drunken men in the saloon after a wake and things get predictably uglier from there in a sequence that felt like a third of the book. Cuchillo leads an attack on the military, though he is hesitant to kill and is mocked by his more bloodthirsty tribesmen.
The ending felt rushed, and we don't get the Cuchillo of later installments. I've felt the first issues of Men's Adventure series are often the weakest, focused on the origin story.
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