SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED -- Meg Mims

LOVE AND MARRIAGE IN THE OLD WEST

June is coming upon us in a few months, along with the season for weddings -- which got me to thinking. Just how common were mail order brides in the Old West?

Think about the issue this way. After the Civil War, widows and young women outnumbered eligible men in the East. And out west, eligible men vastly outnumbered the few women who'd already followed the call of the gold fields.

So yes. The newspapers had a field day with advertisements for brides willing to travel west, the mail thrummed back and forth between eager bachelors and respectable (or not so respectable, depending on the situation) ladies in small towns out east. Like the internet today, both sides often "doctored" descriptions and/or photographs in hopes of snagging a partner. Disappointment often reigned, of course, and at times men waited in vain for a promised bride - who turned in the ticket for money instead of undertaking a journey. Some newspapers printed notices such as these.

And who doesn't love the film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers? Adam seeks a bride one day in town, snags Millie by pure luck - who envisions a wonderful life with the handsome, sweet talking backwoodsman, but ends up being cook, maid and teacher-of-manners to his six brothers. They soon want their own brides, of course. It's pure fun, and the barn dance is the best part.

In the 1860s, Asa Mercer promised to import women of marriageable age to Seattle - and that history inspired the popular television show, Here Come the Brides (along with the film Seven Brides/Seven Brothers). A set of three brothers bet their tract of timber against the sawmill owner's offer to fund the expenses; the businessman has eyes on that land and timber, of course, while the Bolt brothers have a difficult time convincing the women of Massachusetts to leave home. It's more pure fun, and inspired lots of young girls in their teens to worship at the feet of Bobby Sherman and David Soul. Oh yeah.

Okay, back to the mail order brides issue. Fred Harvey himself played matchmaker, hiring single women "of good character" who could work  in his cafes along the railroad. The businessman kept strict standards, however, that the women must work as waitresses for a year; they were chaperoned while men visited in special "courting" parlors, and had to live in special dormitories. Between 4,000 and 5,000 women ended up marrying by first working as Harvey Girls. This also spawned the Judy Garland hit, The Harvey Girls. While the plot seems silly, they did get the uniform right.

Some immigrants also utilized ways of procuring brides, either through letters or matchmakers. Russian men paid fees to obtain potential wives, steeped in tradition from their old homes; Chinese and Japanese did the same, asking their parents to act as brokers to get a bride, sight unseen or via a blurry photograph. Such pressure from parents sent Asian women across the ocean, or else chose to escape starving to death. The recent TV mini-series, Broken Trail, starred Robert Duvall and Thomas Hayden Church and wove a group of Chinese women brought over as brides - or so they believed.

The theme of mail order brides remains popular in novels. Do a search on Amazon or B&N using that keyword, and you can scroll through 100 pages of offerings. One anthology includes our own Western Fictioneers member Cheryl Pierson in Lassoing a Mail Order Bride - published by Prairie Rose Publications - which sounds really interesting. "A woman would have to be loco to become a mail-order bride... wouldn't she? Leaving everything behind and starting fresh in the untamed west is the answer to a prayer for these ladies!" Check it out.

I used the offer of a train ticket, the promise of a wedding, a nice house with husband and family, as a subplot for a minor female character in  Double Crossing. Check out my novel if you haven't read my western historical mystery with the "True Grit on a train" major theme.

Mail order brides are not a thing of the past. And the tradition continues, not surprisingly. Where there's a need, there's a way to fill it...

Sources: Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, Guidelines, and Pinterest.

Mystery author Meg Mims earned a Spur Award from WWA and also a Laramie award for her western historical mystery series, Double Crossing and Double or Nothing. Meg is also one-half of the writing team of D.E. Ireland for St. Martin's Minotaur mystery series featuring Eliza Doolittle & Henry Higgins -- lives in Southeastern Michigan with her husband and a sweet Malti-poo. She loves writing novels, novellas and short stories, both contemporary and historical. 
Follow her on Facebook, Twitter & Pinterest!

Review Roundup: The Mysteries Continue

Double or Nothing
By Meg Mims
Blue Oyster Press, March 2013
$29.66 hardcover, ISBN 1611738989
$8.99 paperback, ISBN 1491081910
$2.99 Kindle, ASIN B00BUCU0DY
$2.99 most other e-formats, ISBN 9781301509751
259 pages

Lily Granville adored her uncle from afar for most of her life…until she became his ward following her father’s death. Now the old tyrant keeps her a virtual prisoner in his California mansion, using her as a pawn in a political power struggle. Before her uncle can force her into an arranged marriage, Lily elopes with the Texas rake her uncle forbade her to see again. When her husband is arrested and charged with murder on their wedding night, Lily sets out to prove his innocence…even if she must destroy her uncle and his cronies to do so.

Double or Nothing is the sequel to author Meg Mims’s Spur Award-winning first novel, Double Crossing (Astrea Press, 2011). Texan drifter Ace Diamond, with whom Lily fell in love in the first novel, accepts a payoff from Lily’s uncle to disappear—only to sneak back into Lily’s life after investing his windfall in a dynamite factory. The investment increases Ace’s wealth and social cachet; nevertheless, Lily’s overbearing uncle is not about to let an outsider come between him and the quicksilver mine his niece inherited or the political clout to be gained by Lily’s marriage to the scion of a wealthy, powerful Californio dynasty.

That Lily’s unwelcome fiancé happens to be Ace’s business partner—whose social standing puts him above suspicion in a deadly anarchist plot involving their dynamite—is only the tip of the iceberg in this tightly plotted mystery-thriller. Bad guys abound, and even the good guys don’t look all that savory…but that’s what makes the story spellbinding.

One always holds one’s breath when reading a sequel. Second books sometimes don’t live up to expectations, especially when the previous volume was incredibly strong. Double or Nothing doesn’t suffer from “disappointing sequel syndrome.” While the sexual tension between Lily and Ace is necessarily missing for most of the second book—due to Lily’s inopportune separation from the roguish Ace—the pacing, twists, turns, and surprises in the sequel are as good as, or better than, those that made the first story such a success.

Honestly, if Mims hadn’t segued into writing a more “mainstream” mystery series, she could have forged an entire career around Lily and Ace. The characters and their adventures are reminiscent of Dashiell Hammett’s Nick and Nora Charles in the classic The Thin Man. (Note: Though Hammett never wrote a Thin Man sequel in novel form, he did create the screenplays for two of the 1934 movie’s five sequels.)

Come home to the Old West, Meg, and bring Lily and Ace with you.




Kathleen Rice Adams is a Texan, a voracious reader, a professional journalist, and an author. She received a review copy of Double or Nothing from the author. Her opinions are her own and are neither endorsed nor necessarily supported by Western Fictioneers or individual members of the organization. Links in the review are for convenience only; they do not produce affiliate revenue.

WYOMING'S VOTING WOMEN - Meg Mims

I've been researching the history of suffrage in England for the cozy mystery series I'm writing with a partner - Book 1 is coming out September 23rd this year, and Book 2 in 2015. It's been fascinating, but I also remember researching a little about suffrage in Wyoming while writing Double Crossing.

It seems odd to me, as a modern woman, to consider that less than half a century before my birth, women marched in the thousands to fight for their voting rights. But hold on a minute -- turn the clock back years before the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, back to when the United States was born. Did anyone notice that there are no signatures of famous women on the Declaration of Independence? Women who were free and had property could have voted -- and some did -- but they lost that right in New York in 1777, in Massachusetts in 1780, in New Hampshire in 1784. New Jersey, however, didn't revoke the rights of women voters until 1807.

The founding fathers, Jefferson and Adams especially, had no intention of allowing women a voice. Adams replied to his wife's urging to "remember the ladies" in coding the new laws with a tease that men were already subject to the "despotism of the petticoat." And so, despite Abigail Adams' (and other women's) support and help behind the scenes, Adams and the other "fathers" cut women out of having a voice in the government. Hmph.

But enough grumbling. So why did Wyoming Territory choose to grant women citizenship and voting rights? Why would they risk angering the men who lived there? Especially given the six-to-one ratio of men versus women residents. For that reason alone, legislators no doubt wanted to draw more women out west and bring a more civilized atmosphere to Laramie and Cheyenne. Perhaps they hoped that women would be grateful for their unique opportunity and vote with those who granted them the right. There was opposition, too.

But one thing is certain -- Wyoming certainly received a load of free publicity over the issue. Some of the legislators did believe that women ought to have the same rights as African-Americans (men, of course) who gained citizenship and voting rights by passage of the Fourteenth Amendment on July 9th of 1868. And remember, all of the Southern states had to ratify that amendment in order to re-enter the union.

Whatever the motives, Wyoming approved suffrage for women on December 10th, 1869 -- half a century before the other states. Women seemed to have many firsts in the western Wyoming territory. Early in 1870, Esther Hobart Morris was appointed a Justice of the Peace since the previous man had resigned in protest after the vote for suffrage. She even had her own husband arrested once since he was a drunk, a gambler and idle.

To the left, a statue of Esther Hobart Morris stands in front of the Cheyenne State Capitol. A bronze copy of the statue is also in the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington, D.C. I felt pride for Wyoming's women when I visited there a few years ago, since she was the first woman appointed to public office. And Kansas claims Susanna Salter as the first elected mayor (1887). Hooray for western pioneer women!

 Wyoming women were also called to served on juries after the suffrage vote. And in September of 1870, almost 1,000 women voted in the territory's second election. To think it took another 50 years before the rest of the women living in America could take a ballot.

Our foremothers fought hard to gain voting rights. So next time there's an election, ladies, make sure you vote. We owe them that much.

Meg Mims is one half of the D.E. Ireland team writing the Eliza Doolittle-Henry Higgins cozy mystery series for St. Martin's Minotaur, coming out in September 2014. She’s won a Spur Award and a Laramie Award for her western mystery series and also writes sweet dog/cat rescue romance novellas. Meg loves books, flower gardens, visiting tearooms – anything to get out of dusting. Vacuuming does help plotting, though.

Sources: www.wyohistory.org, www.history.com

ON THIS DAY - CARRIE NATION by Meg Mims

On December 27^th, 1900, a dour-faced woman stood before the saloon doors in the Carey Hotel in Wichita, Kansas. Intimidating at almost six feet tall and 185 pounds, Carrie Nation marched in with a hatchet and began smashing the place—the tables and chairs, the bottles and the mirror behind the bar, until the law arrived and arrested her.

Born Carrie Amelia Moore in November of 1846, to parents George and Mary Campbell Moore of Kentucky—slaveowners—she had little education due to the family’s financial troubles that brought about several moves until settling in Missouri. During the War of Rebellion, she nursed soldiers to health and then married a physician, Dr. Charles Gloyd, who had served with the Union Army. Her husband was also an alcoholic—not unusual, given the culture of the day when babies were given whiskey to quiet them, or worse. Carrie and Charles decided the marriage wasn’t working before they had a daughter, Charlien, on September 27, 1868. Carrie had no need for a divorce, since her husband died the following year.

Carrie married for the second time in 1874. David Nation was an attorney, newspaperman and a minister and almost twenty years older. Together they moved to a cotton plantation in Texas but failed to proper. David began to practice law, and in 1880 Carrie ran a hotel in Columbia owned by the Park family. She attended the Methodist Church and lived at the hotel with her daughter Charlien, her first mother-in-law and her husband’s daughter. David also owned a saddle shop near the hotel, but the family chose to move to Richmond, Texas, to run another hotel. Due to her husband’s involvement in a political feud, they moved to Kansas. David began preaching and Carrie took on another hotel to run. But Kansas also had enacted a ban on liquor—with plenty of trouble enforcing the law.

Although Carrie started a chapter of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the group seemed to have little effect on the problem. So Carrie took a personal interest, first using rocks to smash bottles in saloons to protest the lack of enforcement, or singing hymns to patrons going in and out of places serving liquor. She often greeted saloon keepers as “destroyers of men’s souls,” or as “swill-faced, beak-nosed bed mates of Satan.” By 1899 Carrie felt God had called her to step up the work – taking her husband’s advice to use a hatchet for better effect.

Carrie divorced David in 1901, having never had children with him, and continued her campaign either accompanied by other WCTU members or alone. She was often arrested, and her fame grew through her “hatchetations.” She undertook lecture tours and sold small souvenir hatchets for another ten years until her death on June 9, 1911. The WCTU erected a stone to honor her near the unmarked grave in Missouri, with her name spelled as “Carry A. Nation” and “Faithful to the Cause of Prohibition, She Hath Done What She Could.”

Meg Mims is an award-winning author with two western mysteries under her Eastern belt. She lives in Michigan, where the hills are like driveway slopes and trees block any type of prairie winds. LIKE her on Facebook, follow her on Twitter or check out her books on her website. Double Crossing won the 2012 Spur Award for Best First Novel and Double or Nothing is the exciting sequel. Her story, "A Savior Is Born," is included in A Wolf Creek Christmas published by Western Fictioneers.

BE THANKFUL FOR WESTERNS - Meg Mims

I pretty much ran through the various heroines, heroes, horses, villains and sidekicks in my previous posts. I had to think twice about what to address next -- and figured since Thanksgiving is coming up, I'd ask some of the readers an important question.

WHY ARE WE THANKFUL FOR WESTERNS?

Think about it. It's just fiction/film entertainment. A way to pass the time, to relive the "Cowboys and Indians" fun we had as kids, right? Think again. Who hasn't been intrigued by what you've read or watched to Google a fact or fiction question? I have, countless times. Come on, don't be shy! Admit it. Why are we thankful?

 A.  HISTORY - for the history alone, we ought to be thankful (whether or not the book or film gets it right) because reading or seeing a western will definitely spur the interest of the reader/film goer - old, young or in-between. I can't tell you how often as a kid that I went searching in the library for non-fiction books due to seeing Jeremiah Johnston or Little Big Man, Last of the Mohicans (it *was* set in the west, for the era) or Dances With Wolves, McLintock! or Stagecoach, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Tombstone or True Grit -- and I recently read many of the fiction books associated with films (forgive me, I came late to reading in the genre.) Reading and seeing the panoramic views of the American plains, the buffalo herds, the wide open prairie before settlers came, the mountains, the cowboys and cattle drives, the railroad line stretching west - all helped me expand my knowledge of the American West.

B. CHARACTERS - you have to admit that the American West bred unique individuals. Tough, resilient, hard-working, gritty survivors who did whatever they had to or went back East (or died.) The origins of that character and integrity come from the melting pot of all the various people, native and immigrant - pilgrims from England, the original People of all the various tribes stretching east to west, stout Irish and Germans, Italians and other Europeans, Russians and Swedes and many others, and don't forget the African Americans forcibly brought here, who also fought for their freedom, plus the Chinese who were brought to dynamite through the Sierras while building the transcontinental railroad, and who stayed on to fight for a new life here.

These men (and women, which I'll address soon) were portrayed in books and films that have lasted in our memories - and it's up to us to pass on what we know to the next generation of Americans. From the real liver-eating Jeremiah Johnston, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Butch Cassidy, Jesse James and others to actors Graham Greene, Wes Studi, John "Duke" Wayne and Victor Sen Yung who portrayed Hop Sing on Bonanza - long before any television show dared to address anti-Chinese sentiment in the Old West. Long before David Carradine's Kung Fu show, too.

And now for the unique women who stood by their men or stood alone, just as tough and resilient, just as hard-working and gritty. In fact, women equaled men in helping to survive conditions in summer and winter in the endless, empty prairies or in rough towns. Consider Sacagawea, who with her infant son strapped on her back, helped lead the Lewis & Clark expedition... and the pioneer family of Laura Ingalls Wilder, whose daughter Rose assisted her mother in writing the beloved series of her childhood on the prairie. Both Annie Oakley and Calamity Jane proved their mettle in matching men, shot for shot or job for job. And let's not forget Judy Garland in The Harvey Girls, where they actually got the uniform right, to give us a window into how some ladies came out to civilize the Old West.

C.  AS AMERICAN AS MOM, HOT DOGS, BASEBALL AND APPLE PIE

Why else would people in Japan, Germany, Italy and other countries love westerns if not for a love of our country's origins? I'm not sure everyone in America loves our origins as much as they should - except when the Fourth of July or Thanksgiving roll around. Thomas Jefferson started America's westward expansion with the 1803 Louisiana Purchase from the French - you can see the map to get a picture of how fast the "west" was added to the original states and how the territories each had unique traits, from Florida's swamps to the majestic Rockies to the California gold fields and the Pacific Northwest forests. Western books and films give us far more than entertainment. They are based on a foundation of fascinating history, and no other country in the world (except Australia, although their books/films are few) has such a rich, massive lore for readers and film goers to explore and enjoy.

D. ER,  LET'S NOT FORGET "THE PEOPLE"

Many Indian tribes called themselves "The People" and they were here first in fact, although the American government hardly took that into consideration when expanding west - and ruthlessly cut down an incredible array of culture, tribal history and way of life in sheer greed and profit. But Native Americans remain a cornerstone of the "Old West." They can never truly be forgotten, thank goodness. They may never regain the status they once had, of course, when nations and alliances stretched from the east to the west coasts of America. But their grit, spirit and courage shown in battling to maintain their unique way of life shaped the "Old West" as much as the cowboys, cattle droves, Mormons, prairie farmers, gold and silver miners, railroad builders and laborers, lawmen and criminals, soiled doves and gamblers, etc. Consider this map which shows all the tribes before Columbus.

 
I am exceedingly thankful for the Old West, for the history of this country and the endless possibilities to bring that era alive in my writing. Yeehaw and Happy Thanksgiving to y'all!

Meg Mims is an award-winning author with two western mysteries under her Eastern belt. She lives in Michigan, where the hills are like driveway slopes and trees block any type of prairie winds. LIKE her on Facebook, follow her on Twitter or check out her books on her website. Double Crossing won the 2012 Spur Award for Best First Novel and Double or Nothing is the exciting sequel. Both Double Crossing and Double or Nothing are finalists in the Laramie Awards! Her story, "A Savior Is Born," is included in A Wolf Creek Christmas published by Western Fictioneers, and her new Christmas novella, Santa Claws, is out. Last year's Christmas novella Santa Paws is once again an Amazon bestseller!

Source for Tribal Nations map - www.escapistmagazine.com

WESTERN WOUNDS -- HOW ACCURATE IS THAT?

I've been mulling over all month about a topic. Western weather, and how brutal cattle drives and prairie farming must have been. Another real life western hero, or heroine... or a plug about my re-release of the Spur-Award winning Double Crossing (trust me, it's at the end of this post.) But then I thought about one of the most popular Western Fictioneer members, Dr. Keith Souter (w/a Clay More) and thought, "hey, he's a doctor. I have some questions about stuff I see in movies or books."

So that's what we're chatting about today, western wounds. The image to the left is an antique medical bag. Cool, huh? I love including photos on my blog posts. Okay, back to three types of common western wounds. Recovering, surviving, should-this-be-used-in-your-next-book kind of thing, which is called a genre trope. I call it a "how come they did that instead of ... " type of thing. I have a few beefs (or is that beeves?) about what I've read or seen in westerns.

We'll start with something simple and work our way up.

MEG:  Hey, howdy, Dr. Keith! Many thanks for agreeing to participate in "Ask the Expert" today. I've seen a few movies where either the western hero or an Indian *cuts palm* and then waits for the other guy to do the same so they can make a blood bond ... another friend HATES that and claims that injury is too severe, especially in a medieval when they'd pick up their sword or bow and arrow and try to use the weapon. So, maybe they should use their thumb instead?

Dr. Keith Souter:  Cutting the palm will produce a lot of blood, as anyone will know if they have cut themselves with a knife. A very superficial cut would be enough to allow for symbolic mixing of the blood. Of course, with our knowledge about communicable blood-borne diseases nowadays, one would realize that to become a blood-brother in such a ceremony, where severed surface was placed against severed surface, would have a very good chance of transmitting infection. But back then HIV had not developed.

A deep cut would endanger the superficial palmar arch, a ring of arteries formed from branches of the radial artery and the ulnar artery. I have attached a plate from Gray's Anatomy, which has been one the main textbooks of anatomy used by medical students and doctors since it was first published in 1859, by Henry Gray, of St George's Hospital in London. (There is a TV show called Grey's Anatomy, that is a play on the name - note the different spelling). A deep cut would risk arterial damage, which would cause spurting of blood. That would be a significant wound. There would also be significant danger of nerve damage. A superficial hand wound takes a week or so to heal. Deep wound could take weeks and even months, if there was a lot of damage.

However, nature is not so dumb, and we have a protective tissue called the palmar aponeurosis, which protects those deeper structures. That is important considering all the potential trauma that could happen to the palm. It is an extension of the palmaris longus muscle. It can be seen when you flex your hand, as the single tendon in the middle of the wrist. 

14 % of people do not have that single tendon, but they will still have an aponeurosis. I have attached another of Gray's illustrations of the palmar aponeurosis and you can see how it protects the arterial ring.

So, although nicking the thumb would seem adequate for the purpose, cutting the palm superficially would work. The depth of the palm wound would determine whether it could be used. For a simple superficial one, then yes you could use a sword, fire a gun and hold a bow. Wrap it up and grip. It would hurt, but it could be used. A deep wound with a sword or dagger could damage an artery or a nerve. That would not be so usable. And of course, if you breach the palmar aponeurosis and you cut through the muscles that operate the fingers and thumb, the hand will be useless.

Meg:  Wow, this is fabulous. Okay, question number two. In Hell on Wheels, the widowed wife of the surveyor is shot in the shoulder with an arrow. I've read tons of books where heroes are shot in the shoulder, too. I have a problem with them using that arm afterward, or staunching the bleeding and going on about their business. Just how credible is that?

Dr. Keith Souter:  You are quite correct. A shoulder wound is an awful thing to receive. You would have a large chance of smashing the humerus, or worse, damaging the joint itself. And then there is a huge chance of catastrophic bleeding and nerve damage. I have attached another of Gray's illustrations of the arteries and the nerves in the shoulder. This does not include the veins, of course, but they are in close proximity. The artery is in red and the nerves are in yellow. 

The nerve supply is called the brachial plexus. It is the M shaped grouping that you see. Essentially, nerve roots from the cervical part of the spine amalgamate to form the brachial plexus. The three branches of the M are respectively, the radial nerve, the median nerve and the ulnar nerve. Hit or damage any of them and you will produce paralysis of those parts of the arm and hand that they supply.  

Shoulder gunshot wounds are horrific and if you want  a wound that you can carry on with, it should be a flesh wound to the upper arm. Even that will be incapacitating, but it is more plausible.

Having said that, human beings are capable of amazing feats of endurance when they are in danger. But as for fighting with a shoulder wound? Not easy!

Now an arrowhead is a filthy thing. The arrowhead must be removed, but the yanking out that you see and read about will not work. It simply leaves the arrowhead in where it will fester. That could then develop into septicaemia and result in death. I have researched this and will quote Dr J.H. Bill from the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, 1862, a surgeon with real and extensive experience of treating arrow wounds. "An arrow is designed so that its head will detach. Generally, when an arrow is fired it is designed to kill, not to maim." Read my April blog post, The Doctor's Bag, along with a few comments about poisoned arrow tips and how they made the poison.

Pistol balls would not travel as fast and made less of a mess than the Minie ball/bullet, which was used in the Civil War. It expanded and traveled faster and made more mess. But the thing about bullets is that they travel and get so hot they burn off microbes, so they are less liable to get infected than are arrow wounds. Shoulder gunshot depends on weapon caliber and if anatomical structures are damaged. If the bone is injured or nerves are damaged then it is useless and can't be used for a month or more and gradual recovery.

MEG:  Thanks for verifying, wow. I'll just grit my teeth if I see or read that kind of thing again. Since I'm fairly new to the western genre, I've been reading a lot of books where a character is "gut shot." I did not want to include a gut wound picture, because they are SOO GROSS! This will have to do, LOL. So does that mean - "you're dead?" How bad is being gut-shot? Can anyone survive or walk around with a wound in the gut?

Dr. Keith Souter:  Gut shots were always regarded as potentially fatal, but Dr George Goodfellow became the gunshot expert. I have talked about bullet wounds in my last blog. You had a chance of survival if it was a lower calibre weapon .32 or less, in the lower abdomen (below the umbilicus). Upper abdomen, or high calibre, very little chance. Check out the blog, Dig it Out, Doc - Part 2, Bullets, by clicking the link. Abdominal gunshots again depend on weapon caliber and site plus how much internal damage, depending on its direction - you could hit several vital organs, which could prove fatal. You would not be capable of fighting. Recovery would necessitate surgery and several months of healing. 

MEG:  Got it. Think LOWER when writing gunshot battles. Too much stuff in the upper area, I suppose, with the stomach, liver, spleen, etc...  Here's an encore question -- just because it's one of my favorite Clint Eastwood movies: How did good ole Clint survive the hanging in Hang 'Em High? I mean, he did survive and I believed it and figured it was accurate. But why? Just curious as to anatomy.

Dr. Keith Souter:  Hanging produces death either from breaking the neck, such as occurs on a gallows and there is a sudden drop, or from blockage of the airways, obstruction of the venous drainage in the brain by pressure on the jugular veins in the neck, or by obstruction of the arterial flow to the brain by pressure on the carotid arteries. It is also likely that the heart can suddenly stop as the result of vasovagal inhibition. 

In judicial hangings with a drop of six feet there is likely to be fracture dislocation at the level of the 2nd and 3rd cervical vertebrae or the 3rd and 4th vertebrae. This would tear the cord from the medulla of the brain. 

If someone is hoisted up from the ground, then the cervical fracture and dislocation and sudden death is less likely. The other causes mentioned above are likely eventually. In England in medieval days, the crime of treason was death by being hanged, drawn and quartered. The victim was hanged until he passed out, then he was cut down, revived and then the rest of the execution proceeded. Horrifically grisly, but they developed torture and execution into a fine art.

When people commit suicide by standing on a chair and then toppling it over, they usually do not break their neck (because the drop is not long enough) but will succumb by the other methods mentioned.

In a matter of life or death, people are able to do remarkable things - drag themselves around, stagger to safety. The fight or flight reaction comes into action and you pump up so much adrenaline that you can get extra strength to override the pain matrix. In addition, in battle - from studies in world War II - wounded soldiers often felt remarkably little pain even in the face of quite major trauma. According to the Gate Control theory of Melzack and Wall, put forward in 1965,  it is possible to close one or more of the gates in the transmission of pain from the site up to the brain. 

Meg: Interesting! Odd how that illustration shows the men with their mouths closed and eyes shut, where I would think they'd be gasping for breath. Hm. I'm so grateful to you, Doc, for chatting about such great western stuff! Thanks again. Readers can find Clay More's books here.

Meg Mims is an Award-winning author and artist -- her first published book, DOUBLE CROSSING, won the WWA Spur Award for Best First Novel in 2012. A blend of True Grit and Murder on the Orient Express, it has over 30 five-star reviews on Amazon. The sequel, DOUBLE or NOTHING, is also available and continues the story of heroine Lily Granville and hero Ace Diamond.

APRIL WINNER----LAURIE POWERS!

Hi everyone,

I'm a little bit late in the drawing for the prize from our blog follower list for April's winner, but here it is!

MEG MIMS is giving away a signed print copy of her SPUR AWARD winning debut novel, DOUBLE CROSSING, for our April drawing.

And our April winner from the WESTERN FICTIONEERS BLOG FOLLOWERS list is......

LAURIE POWERS!!!!!!

Laurie, if you will e-mail me at fabkat_edit@yahoo.com I will see that you get your copy of DOUBLE CROSSING! Congratulations, you lucky lady!

Cheryl

MY FAVORITE WESTERN NOVEL by MEG MIMS

It's no secret.

My favorite western novel - absolutely favorite - is True Grit by Charles Portis. Why? The authentic dialogue. The in-depth narrative. The action-packed plot. The unique characters, both major and minor. What's not to like?

The novel first came out as a serial edition in The Saturday Evening Post in 1968. And just look at this classic illustration! Clearly this is a gritty heroine. By her dress, a reader knows she's not rich. She's also not pretty, like many of the heroines we see now on book covers. She holds the rifle as if she knows full well how to use it. And she has that determined look in her face. Oh yeah.

TRUE grit.

So what exactly does "true grit" mean? "Unyielding courage in the face of danger, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and & Culture, which has an entire page

devoted to Charles McColl Portis (born in 1933) and considered one of the state's finest writers. His other books haven't sold in the millions like True Grit - and only Norwood was made into a film in 1970, also starring Glen Campbell, after the first version of True Grit came out in 1969. Everyone knows the film earned a Best Actor Oscar for John Wayne's portrayal of Rooster Cogburn.

Michael Cleary considered Portis to be "one of the most inventively comic writers of western fiction" in his essay on the writer, included in Twentieth Century Western Writers (Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1982). I'd have to agree with that, since there are many places I laughed out loud while reading the

book - long after I saw the 1969 movie as a young teen. I discovered, as many know, that the book is far better than the movie. But our culture is becoming far more visual, and a film gives us that expansive view of what the setting is like, and I was mesmerized by the cinematography of the first movie. But it wasn't filmed in Oklahoma - instead, in California and Colorado! It was also far more colorful, while the 2010 movie seemed grittier - and filmed in Texas and New Mexico. Guess Arkansas and Oklahoma weren't available. (wink)

While I enjoyed the Duke's portrayal despite him being far too old for the role, I sensed Kim Darby wasn't right (and I was right) nor was Glen Campbell as LaBoeuf. I didn't consider any of these actors while reading the book - Portis' characterizations contain plenty of strong descriptive passages. The incredible dialogue blew me away. A novel is supposed to sweep the reader off their feet and carry them away into its world. I can attest that when I picked up Portis' novel, True Grit, I became totally immersed in the 1800s setting and eagerly followed Mattie Ross' journey to track her father's killer.

The story is a classic - following the hero's journey (not all stages, but the most important) when Mattie accepts the call to adventure (her decision to track down Chaney), gaining a mentor and ally in Rooster Cogburn, faces tasks and trials (convincing Rooster and LaBoeuf to allow her to join the search, dealing with criminals in the cabin), and surviving a severe challenge (abduction by Ned Pepper's gang, the fall into the snake pit after facing Chaney.) It's a great action plot, with plenty of gunfire - and both the 1969 and 1910 film showed Rooster's hell-bent-for-leather shoot-out with his rival and gang-leader Ned Pepper. Also, Rooster's mercenary ways are redeemed when he saves Mattie from death. I loved it. Totally loved it. It's a book I'd read again and again, like many true classics.

And of course, as many people know, I was inspired to write Double Crossing due to True Grit's "heroine facing a challenge." While I twisted the theme (adding betrayal to Lily's challenge to survive) and utilized the newly opened transcontinental railroad instead of horses, I included some character traits from both Rooster Cogburn and LaBoeuf - rolling them into Ace Diamond. He's a Texan, ex-Confederate, expert fighter with or without weapons, and also courageous despite his mercenary tendencies.

Double Crossing will be re-released in July - with a new cover - but it's available in hardcover large print (as seen on the right) as well as in Audiobook from Audible.com.

I have to give Charles Portis a rousing "yeehaw" for his book's influence. If you haven't read True Grit, I urge you to RUN to the bookstore or switch now via this link and buy it! IMMEDIATELY. And then relax, in a comfy chair by the fire, with a great beverage (your choice) nearby, and READ.

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Meg Mims is an award-winning author and artist. She writes blended genres – historical, western, adventure, romance, suspense and mystery.

Her first book, Double Crossing, won the 2012 Spur Award for Best First Novel from Western Writers of America, was named a Finalist in the Best Books of 2012 from USA Book News for Fiction: Western, and was named a Top 12 Book Pick from The Spiritual Woman. 

Double or Nothing is the sequel. Meg has also written two contemporary romance novellas, The Key to Love and Santa Paws — which reached the Amazon Kindle Bestseller list. She earned an MA from Seton Hill University's Writing Popular Fiction program in 2010.