STICK TO THE FACTS by JERRY GUIN

I wrote my first book back in 1995. It is a nonfiction book titled Matsutake Mushroom, which was published in 1997. It is simply a true story about the harvest and sale of wild forest mushrooms, from the Pacific Northwest, for profit.

My education began when I started selling the book.

https://www.amazon.com/West-Big-River-Western-Novels-ebook/dp/B01I5T0LVA/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
I visited the publisher to pick up a few copies to get started. When the publisher learned of my intended five-day, three-state tour, she insisted that I take on 400 copies. Despite my reluctance to attempt to sell so many, I took the books. What the heck, if they did not sell, I could always bring them back.

I was received warmly by many small book stores and convenience stores. The average sale was three to five copies. I visited the area where the actual story of the book took place and found that I had many critics. Men would thumb the pages and ask, “Where's the pictures?” Women would ask, “What kind of recipes are in here?” That book contained neither. Where did I go wrong? The story is based on actual facts, which no one can dispute. It seemed that some folks expected something other than what I was offering but, thankfully, by the end of my tour I had sold over 300 copies.

I learned quickly that if you are going to write nonfiction, number one, you better know what you are talking about and number two, don't get too far off the beaten path of what is expected. The book, hard copy only, still sells modestly.

Around 1995 I turned to writing what was and is my predominant interest, which is western fiction.
I never expected to write award winning stories such as those by greats Louis L'Amour, Zane Grey or Max Brand but I felt that I could spin a yarn, which could be construed as actually happening.

https://www.amazon.com/Code-West-Classic-Western-Novels-ebook/dp/B01JM2UONO/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
I began writing short stories and presented them for consideration with mild success.

https://www.amazon.com/Traditional-West-Western-Fictioneers-ebook/dp/B005E1JI8U/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
In 2011 I was accepted as a member of Western Fictioneers. Happy to correspond with well known authors Robert Randisi, James Reasoner, Frank Roderus, Jory Sherman and others. I was greatly inspired by having a story included in the Fictioneers first anthology, The Traditional West. It got the creative juices flowing.

Troy, Livia, Cheryl and others offered and encouraged me to write compelling stories that aren't necessarily true but could have happened, if given enough historical facts to support the tale. The more facts you can produce, the better.

https://www.amazon.com/Once-Drover-Jerry-Guin-ebook/dp/B01D7P3MD6/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
The actual history involved in a story could leave a writer scratching his head to find a way around it. I will not attempt to change history in any of my stories. The story has to revolve around the facts.

The Wolf Creek series is purely fiction and locked into 1871, now 1872.

In Wolf Creek 16, Luck of The Draw, part two, one of my characters is Luke Short, yes the famous gambler and gunman. Young Luke Short, eighteen at the time, according to history, did participate in driving a herd of cattle to Abilene, Kansas. He wanted to be a gambler so bad that he gave up trailing cattle and set out to make his own way as a professional gambler.

https://www.amazon.com/Wolf-Creek-Luck-Draw-part-ebook/dp/B01GFCWVR6/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
For the purpose of putting a well known name into 'Bet The Boots' I used Luke Short. One, he was a gambler. Two he was in Abilene in 1871 and turned to gambling as a way of life. So I had him stop into Wolf Creek for the poker tournament. In actuality, as far as anyone knows, after Luke left Abilene he was known to be selling rotgut whiskey in a buffalo camp on the plains near what would later become Dodge City.

If Wolf Creek existed at the time, lured by the gambling, why wouldn't Luke pay a visit? In my mind his appearance in the story is believable without disturbing historical facts.

Stretching the truth a little, such as a potion salesman's claims of the miracle cures by the consumption of his product is as far as I will go in pushing the envelope.

Creating heroes, hardships, finding a lost love or having a character cheat, steal, or kill others are enough to keep any writer busy crafting a believable story around historical facts.

https://www.amazon.com/Wolf-Creek-Hunters-Moon-18/dp/1540539717/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Nobody can change history and a good story will reflect the facts as they are.


Jerry Guin is a member of Western Fictioneers and Western Writers of America.

He has authored more than 40 western fiction short stories and 7 western novels.

His latest novel– Once a Drover – was first introduced in 2014 by Western Trailblazer.
It was re-introduced by Sundown Press in 2016.

Western Fictioneers Announces New Release -- Stories Along . . . THE HUNGRY TRAIL by Christine Matthews

A frontier con man who claims he can raise the dead...a prisoner desperate to escape from the hellhole of Yuma Prison...a legendary Texas Ranger...a famous gunfighter and peace officer turned newspaperman...a family that's both dangerous and strange...These are only some of the characters who inhabit the tales in STORIES ALONG...THE HUNGRY TRAIL by Christine Matthews. Poignant, expertly plotted, and filled with compelling characters, these stories capture the human drama of the Old West and the people who lived in that time and place, and will stay with the reader long after the hungry trail has come to an end.

EXCERPT

The trail is always hungry. No matter how much you feed it, it always wants more—never satisfied. It chews up animals, leaving behind only bones to bleach out in the blazing sun. Many have offered a sacrifice to the earth, tearfully burying a wife or little brother, deep down, begging for forgiveness because they're forced to leave a loved one behind. They pile rocks to mark the grave and keep wild things away. But they never stop to think that the trail is their real enemy.

Old ones, too tired to go on, stumble and finally fall. They pray with every step for renewed strength. But they can't get back up. The trail grabs hold of them, never letting go until they all become one with the dirt.

And when the trail is thirsty, it drinks up the rain, the blood, anything wet. It doesn't care. Sometimes, when it's had enough, which isn't often, it spits up a flood. But sooner or later, everything soaks back down, causing the trail to parch and crack again, craving only to drink more. Men who respect the trail do better than naive travelers who insult the ancient soil they ride over in their wagons, for they never forget the trail is alive. Dirt, grass, even the rocks, forever chewing, gnawing at the life moving above it.


I was arrogant. But it didn't take long for me to learn that the trail isn't particular. It'll beat the hope right out of a man—make him its slave. 

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The Western Fictioneers Library Presents HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, J. AUBREY WHITFORD by Frank Roderus

J. Aubrey Whitford is a natural-born con man, so when he finds himself stranded in the wilds of Texas his first instinct is to figure out a way to fleece the citizens of that rugged frontier. He doesn't know that his efforts will soon land him in a dangerous game involving outlaws, Indians, and the U.S. Cavalry, with his only way to survive—and maybe even profit—being a perilous masquerade as a visiting British nobleman.

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, J. AUBREY WHITFORD is a rollicking comedy adventure with darker edges from one of the master storytellers of the Old West, award-winning author Frank Roderus. See why Roderus is one of today's best-selling Western writers in this classic novel now available again from the Western Fictioneers Library.

Sample:

ESMERALDAVILLE, Texas. The name was about two syllables bigger than the town. A poor stage for a player of substance. Still and all, if Esmeraldaville was all one had, why then, Esmeraldaville was the clay one would mold to meet one's need.

J. Aubrey Whitford firmed his jaw and adopted his best and most dignified mien.

He was, he acknowledged, at considerably less than his best.

Very much the fault of the miserable beast, eh? Horseback. Such a crude form of transportation.

But then this was Texas. What could one expect? Even in this modern era, this Year of Our Lord 18 and 52, Texas and Texans had managed to mire themselves in the past. No railroads. An uncertain post. No scheduled coach service to speak of. Why, these people built their houses of mud, for heaven's sake. It was all quite drearily uncivilized.

Yet it was what one was required to work with.

J. Aubrey sniffed loudly, almost lost his balance for a moment there and had to grab for the vertically emplaced knob thing that was conveniently mounted on the front of his saddle. Damn, but he did despise horses. Perching atop them, that is. It was acceptable to ride in a properly sprung vehicle behind them.

But to try to balance oneself on a horse's narrow, bouncing back? That was more than uncomfortable. It was dangerous. One could fall. And it was a long way down.

J. Aubrey Whitford might make many claims—some of them actually valid—but equestrian eptitude was a boast he would never proclaim. "Walk, horse, waaalk."

He bounced, jigged and wriggled, struggling all the while to maintain a position more or less in the middle of the vile beast. His point at the moment was to avoid the fall he dreaded.

Still and all...

A man does what a man must do. Homespun hooey to be sure, but in this case true.

J. Aubrey Whitford was, after all, a man on a mission. If that meant he had to ride a horse, then a horse he would ride.

He squared his shoulders. Lifted his chin. Hoped his collar had not begun yet to wilt. He would have reached up to finger it and make sure but that would have involved letting go of his grip on the saddle knob thing.

He wanted to present himself at his best to the townspeople of Esmeraldaville, Texas.

And please, please, please he would not fall off the damned horse while doing so.

"I'm coming, Grace. I'm coming," he muttered softly to reinforce his resolve.

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THE DOCTOR'S BAG

THE PILL AND THE SYRINGE 

- pushing back the frontiers of Medicine

If you are a Gunsmoke fan you will doubtless have been amazed at how many medicines Doc Galen Adams crammed into that old black bag of his. He was prepared for any eventuality and would always have something that he could give to relieve the sick or injured.

Back in Wolf Creek Doc Logan Munro tries his best to stay up to date with modern medicine and surgery. He makes up all of his own medicines, often using herbs or traditional remedies that he has picked up along the way or been alerted to by Charlie Blackfeather.

But the way that the medicines were given is interesting, because in medicine you want to present a drug to the body in the most effective way that you can. 


The invention of the pill
We must go back into the mists of time to look at a great boon to mankind, the development of the pill as a means of delivering medicine. 

The ancient Egyptians seem to have been the first to come up with the idea. There are ten medical and surgical papyri, which detail treatments used in the days of the pharaohs. The Ebers papyrus, written about 1550 BC contains recipes for all manner of enemas, lozenges and pills. These early pills were hard compressed balls of clay or bread. In addition, they sometimes used the faeces of various creatures.

Now I guess you may have turned your nose up in disgust at that last sentence. But consider the times they lived in, with a pantheon of over 400 gods and goddesses. The world was a mystical place organised by the deities, and the priesthoods had rituals that covered just about every activity that could be undertaken. 

The scarab, the dung beetle rolled a ball of dung in order to lay its eggs inside it. This the Egyptians believed was symbolic of the god Khepri, the scarab-headed god, who rolled the sun across the heavens each day. 

The dung beetle rolling the ball was thought to be symbolic of the god Khepri

The scarab was the ancient Egyptian symbol of birth, regeneration and renewal as well as being used as a powerful talisman for health. It has been suggested that priest physicians invoked Khepri when they made their remedies, which they did as these crude pills, like the dung beetle.

Coating the pill

The basic design for the pill lasted almost 2,500 years until the Persian physician Rhazes (865-925 AD) improved upon it by giving it a coating. By using a psyllium-seed mucilage the solved the problem of the nauseating or bitter tasting pill.

                                                                 Rhazes (865-925 AD)

A  century later another Persian polymath, known as Avicenna (980-1037 AD) further improved it by coating his pills in silver or gold leaf. In an age of alchemy, precious metals were thought to enhance the effectiveness of medicines. An interesting boost to the placebo effect.

                                                           Avicenna (980-1037 AD)

The first London Pharmacopoeia
A Pharmacopoeia is a book of drugs with all of their ingredients, actions and side effects. The first London Pharmacopoeia of 1618 contained recipes for 38 pills. Of these, 23 were derived from medical works written in Arabic. Two were from Avicenna and one from Rhazes. 

This photograph shows a sample page detailing a purgative pill devised by Avicenna - Pilule Pestilentiales Ruffi.


The problem of bioavailability
Bioavailability means the readiness with which a drug can be absorbed and allowed to reach its target organs. The pills that had been in use for centuries often had poor bioavailability because the material they were encased in didn't break down in the intestines. In many cases it would be like swallowing and trying to absorb buckshot.

In 1834 the French pharmacist Mothes devised the gelatin capsule, which could be used to contain liquids or powders.These are still used today.

A real breakthrough came in 1884 when Dr William Upjohn (1853-1932) patented a 'friable pill,' which was made by compressing powder into a pill shape. This would then dissolve in the stomach and be absorbed quickly. It had good bioavailability. 

Dr Upjohn lived, qualified and practiced in Michigan. He knew that his invention was a winner, the problem being to persuade other doctors to use his friable pills rather than their own hard pellets. He did it by sending thousands of pine boards along with traditionally made pills and his own friable pills to doctors all over the country, inviting them to  try to hammer the traditional pills into the board. They often did so without breaking, showing how hard it was for the body to absorb. In comparison, one of his friable pills could be turned into powder, ready to be absorbed, merely with the pressure of the thumb. It was a brilliant and persuasive image which became the logo of The Upjohn  Pill and Granule Company that he and his brother formed in Kalamazoo in 1886. It was to become one of the pharmaceutical giants of the 20th Century.

It changed the face of medicine.



The hypodermic syringe
We now come to a relatively recent invention, the hypodermic syringe. Being the sort of man that he is, Dr Logan Munro would certainly grasp its potential and soon be giving the citizens of Wolf Creek the benefits of the latest science.

Hypodermic comes from the Greek hypo, meaning 'under' and derma, meaning 'skin'. It therefore means syringing under the skin into the body.

This is one of the most important inventions in medicine, for it gave doctors a means of delivering drugs into the patient's system, by-passing the gastro-intestinal tract. That is often a good thing to do, especially if the person has an inflamed stomach or if they are vomiting and unable to keep anything down. But it wasn't invented until the mid-nineteenth century.

Syringes had been used in medicine for centuries, but for introducing fluid into bodily orifices, or to suck out fluids or pus. Some attempts to give drugs by injecting them into the body were made in the early seventeenth century, but they were not successful and fatalities did occur. In those days it would be highly likely that infections would have been directly introduced to the tissues.

The first necessity was to produce a hollow needle. This was done by Dr Francis Rynd (1801-1861) an Irish surgeon in 1843. He successfully develop a technique with a hollow needle for injecting opiates to treat neuralgia.

Dr Thomas Wood (1817-1884) a Scottish physician invented the first hypodermic syringe in 1853. Apparently he tried to copy the cation of a bee sting, so he used a hollow needle that could be attached to a metal syringe.  He used t to inject morphine and other opiates in the treatment of neuralgia, which was at that time  an umbrella label for all manner of painful conditions.

             
                                                      Dr Thomas Wood (1817-1884)

During the Civil War most surgeons simply dusted morphine into wounds or gave opium pills. Dr John Billings (1838-1913), a Lieutenant Colonel in the Union Army was the first doctor to use a hypodermic syringe in the field. Despite his advocacy of it, however, probably less than a dozen were used during the war.

                                                          Dr John Billings (1838-1913)

Dr Billings would go on to become one of the most prominent physicians and librarians in American medicine.

                                                 A mid-19th century hypodermic syringe

Syringes are used to inject subcutaneously (just under the skin), intra-muscularly (into the muscle) and intra-venously (directly into the blood stream through a vein). It is important to expel any air when giving an intra-venous injection, sine an air bubble can travel throughout the circulation as an air embolism. It can have the same effect as  a blood clot and could produce a heart attack, stroke or chest pain. They can be rapidly fatal. It is for this reason that you see doctors invert a syringe, as in the position in the photograph, tap it to get any air to the top of the syringe, below the aperture of the needle, then squirt some fluid out. This is to get rid of air bubbles to prevent an embolism.

Hell on the Prairie, the sixth Wolf Creek book features Keith (Clay More's) character Dr Logan Munro, the town doctor in THE OATH, a story about a spectre from his past. 

Logan has been in Books 1, 4 and 6, and 8 and appears in the second Christmas anthology O DEADLY NIGHT in the story THE SPIRIT OF HOGMANAY 

And his other new character, Doc Marcus Quigley, dentist, gambler and occasional bounty hunter continues in his quest to bring a murderer to justice, in RATTLER'S NEST in his  ebook short stories THE ADVENTURES OF DOCTOR MARCUS QUIGLEY published by High Noon Press.

DOUBLE-DEALING AT DIRTVILLE was originally published by Hale as a Black Horse Western, but is now available as an ebook from Western Fictioneers Library.

Review Roundup: Revenge is a Bitter Brew

Ranger’s Revenge
By James J. Griffin
Western Fictioneers Library, March 2013
$0.99 Kindle, ASIN B00BNQJ2G8
195 pages

When a gang of outlaws attacks Texas Ranger Jim Blawcyzk’s wife and son, a dyed-in-the-wool lawman sheds his badge to get revenge. Determined to deliver justice personally this time, he disobeys orders and sets out after the lowlifes, not knowing whether his family will live or die of their wounds. Will he cross the line and become exactly the sort of man he’s always hunted?

First published in 2008 and out of print for several years before Western Fictioneers re-released the book in digital formats, Jim Griffin’s Ranger’s Revenge represents something of a departure for the author. Griffin typically draws a bright line between good and evil, hero and outlaw. In this tale, Blawcyzk — one of the author's recurring characters — wears the mantle of an antihero, and he wears it well. The outlaws wanted him dead; his wife and son were collateral damage. That notion twists a knife deep in Blawcyzk’s soul. Part of him demands the personal satisfaction of avenging his innocent loved ones, yet he can’t quite turn loose of his bone-marrow-deep principles. The conflict tears him up inside and creates a honed edge of tension for most of the book.

While Blawcyzk hunts the outlaws, the Rangers hunt him. He must employ everything he’s learned about both sides of the law just to survive. When partners and old friends come to his aid, he’s burdened with the additional knowledge their careers and lives are in jeopardy, too. Nevertheless, he forges deeper into the bowels of a self-made hell, more conflicted than ever but unwilling to abandon his quest.

Ranger’s Revenge is gritty, action-packed, and full of Griffin’s signature historical detail. For Griffin fans, this is a must-read. For writers, it’s excellent study material. Readers who enjoy classic westerns will find all the tradition they could want between the covers.


Kathleen Rice Adams is a Texan, a voracious reader, a professional journalist, and a novelist in training. She received a review copy of Ranger’s Revenge from the publisher. Her opinions are her own and are neither endorsed nor necessarily supported by Western Fictioneers or individual members of the organization.