Cowboys and Comanches : BRULES, <i> By Harry Combs (Lyford Books, Novato, Calif. 94945: $19.95</i> ; <i> 521 pp.</i> )

Barbecues were different in the Old West. Out in Comanche country south of the Santa Fe Trail, the purpose of outdoor cookery was torture, not al fresco dining. To be the guest of honor at one of these impromptu cookouts meant being tied upright between two posts and roasted to death over a mesquite fire by pitiless chefs with painted faces and buffalo-horn helmets.

This is the bitter but extremely educational experience of Cat Brules, a naive young man with a Smith and Wesson revolver and a Winchester rifle who thoughtlessly rides into Indian Country after killing his trail boss over a whore.

With the prostitute in tow and believing a posse is after him, Brules flees the cattle town where he drilled the fatal hole in his former supervisor. After plenty of hard riding, he then risks a shortcut through Comanche turf to the safety of Taos. Of course, the gamble leads straight to disaster, as Combs--previously the author of a study of the Wright Brothers titled “Kill Devil Hill”--graphically demonstrates in his first novel, a nonstop adventure set mainly in 1867.

That year large areas of the West were still open and wild, as Brules and the dance-hall girl Michelle soon discover. After their capture by Comanches, Michelle is burned alive and Brules escapes, following a mountain gunfight with his captors. For a while, the 19-year-old hero returns to civilization, eventually teaming up with his best friend Pedro Gonzales to get rich as buffalo hunters. Hiring skinners and buying mules and a wagon to haul hides, Brules and Pedro return to the same prairies where Michelle died.

Naturally, Brules’ venture into the free market leads to yet another tragic encounter with the Comanches, who don’t give a darn about white men’s free enterprise or family values. The Indians capture Pedro and kill him by dragging him over rocky ground.

“Brules” is a relentlessly old-fashioned Western, but with a twist. The young cowboy becomes a man without a country, hating Comanches and despising white men with equal vigor. Pedro’s death turns him into a killing machine. Vowing to slay every Comanche he can find, the newly minted avenger rides deep into Indian territory and exacts a savage toll on the tribe.

Alone, Brules experiences epiphanies of death as he stalks Indians. During one encounter, he reflects, “It promised to be a real exciting day. In fact, I welcomed the opportunity to pit my skill against that of an Indian. I figured it was gonna be a good hunt, ‘bout as fair a game as a man could expect--hunting down a wounded Comanche in his own country and him armed near as good as me.”

All in all, Brules has a very good time.

That’s not to say, however, that “Brules” is a mindless Chuck Norris Goes West piece of hack work. Brules eventually mellows out and turns to other pursuits and his life is marked by other forms of adventure and tragedy. And Combs’ research into the period is meticulous. Readers are treated to mini-essays on the differences between Winchester and Henry repeating rifles, the virtues of small-caliber revolvers and the proper way to shoot a man off a horse when he is charging straight at you.

Moreover, the chief character tells the story of his life from the bittersweet perspective of old age, a device that worked well in Thomas Berger’s “Little Big Man.” The result is a satisfying entertainment with only minor flaws. The determinedly old-fashioned vernacular used by Brules to tell his story occasionally grates on the ear. You gotta wonder, though, if anybody was ever as good a shot as Brules, who in several pitched battles takes out a Comanche with every bullet.

But then the willing suspension of disbelief was always necessary to enjoy a good Western.