THE POINTY END OF POINT-OF-VIEW ---by Marc Cameron

My child bride taught me early in our married life that she and I had two distinctly different ways of looking at things. Much of that had to do with the fact that I was raised in Texas and she grew up in Alberta. I’m the eldest, born when my twenty-year-old parents had been married about nine months and fifteen minutes. She’s a surprise baby that came along when her father was fifty.

She was, and is, a mystery to me.  That’s what makes things interesting.

As a fledgling patrol officer, I saw early on that people’s backstory has a lot to do with how they react in any given situation—a truth I try to carry over in my writing.  

As I’ve said before, coppers love to tell war stories. If you’d indulge me, I think this one illustrates my point…

One slow summer Sunday on midnight shift—when I was about twenty-three—I fell in behind a beater pickup truck that was going over the posted limit. It was around three in the morning—the hour when only cops, newspaper delivery folks and bad guys are out and about—so there weren’t many other vehicles on the street.

Well, this son of a gun refused to pull over—even with my cosmically powerful blue and reds flashing in his rearview mirror.  Even a yelp from my siren didn’t faze him.  He didn’t really run, he just kept the old truck steady at around forty-five in the thirty-zone.

This could not be tolerated. 

Thinking he was likely DWI, I informed dispatch of the situation. There was a long pause before the sweet dispatcher, who was having some marriage problems at the time and a little addled, came back and sheepishly asked:

“320, does that happen to be a red Ford..?”

Turned out, the guy had called in several minutes before with a medical emergency and thought I was his escort to the hospital.

He bailed out of the truck when we got to the ER, waving me up to help him. Could I please help him carry his girlfriend inside? She’d overdosed on something, he just didn’t know what.

When he opened the passenger door, the top half of a brunette slinkyed out in a naked backbend along with a bottle of Peppermint Schnapps. Lilywhite arms sprawled over her head like she was doing the ‘wave’ upside down. 

You just never know what’s going to fall out of a strange truck at three in the morning, so I said a little prayer of relief when I discovered the top half was still connected to the bottom half.

I grabbed her under her arms and gave her roughneck boyfriend the legs and nether regions—which weren’t even covered by so much as a footy sock.

Trying not to gawk, I was watching where I stepped when she woke up. She looked up at this strange copper cradling her in his arms and went the closest thing to berserk I have ever witnessed. I hung on for dear life, trying not to touch any exposed bits that would give her cause to file a complaint—while she spat and clawed and spun and did everything but vomit pea soup in my face. After about five seconds of gyration, she passed out. She woke up again when we put her on the gurney inside, and thrashed so hard, the ER doc thought she might break her own arms if he used the restraints. So, four of us held her down, for her own good, one on each arm, one on each leg, while they tried to figure out what was wrong with her.

Each time she woke up, she screamed and kicked and fought, knocking a nurse to the ground. I adjusted my grip on her shoulder so I didn’t hurt her, and she took the opportunity to twist her neck around and try to sink her teeth into my arm.  We tried to cover her with a sheet but it just slid to the floor.  I was impressed by how hard everyone worked to keep her from injuring herself.

Inside the bright lights of the ER it was easier to see what she looked like.

She was maybe twenty-five, about five-four and weighed in at around a hundred and thirty. Young and farm-girl sturdy, she might have been attractive with a shower and a little less alcohol. The soles of her feet were black from going barefoot, her knees were skinned and her fingernails were dirty. I began to imagine she’d been working in the garden while she drank the Schnapps.

What she lacked in cleanliness, she made up for with brute, crazy-woman strength. Several times, I thought she might wrench away from me, and I was in my prime. She seemed imbued with that sort of fearsome strength that allows mothers to lift tractors off trapped children.

The most striking thing about her, apart from the briar-rose tattoo, was the web of scar tissue across her chest and one side of her ribs. It looked as though she’d gone through the windshield in a bad car accident. 

If you’d asked me when I was twenty-one what I’d think about fighting a naked girl, I’d have lied and said that the notion was abhorrent. But that’s because I’d never done it before.

Turns out it really was.

Her parents came in a few minutes later. Since I was the primary officer, I handed off my post at a shoulder and elbow and went out front to what I could learn.

When the girl’s mother saw me, her knees buckled.  There was a momentary flash of fire in her eyes, and for a minute I thought she might come unglued on me too. Finally, she calmed down enough to talk.

It seems that I bore a near perfect resemblance to the girl’s ex—who had tied her to a bed and carved away at her chest with a straight razor to get his jollies…

One of the other officers poked his head out of the exam room and said the girl had calmed down and went right to sleep after I left.

Guess I have that effect on people.

The episode drove home to me that everyone has a backstory—often unknown to us—and that backstory colors everything they do. I have no doubt that if that young woman would have had a weapon in that situation I would have had to shoot her or risk getting shot myself.

When I write, I try to keep in mind that POV isn’t just whose voice happens to be telling the story. It’s the stuff that can add mystery to a marriage or make a terrified woman want to kill the guy who’s trying to save her life. 

Marc Cameron is a retired Chief Deputy US Marshal and 29-year law enforcement veteran. His short stories have appeared in BOYS’ LIFE Magazine and the Saturday Evening Post. He has published nine novels, six of them Westerns (several as a ghost writer and two under his pen name, Mark Henry).  His present Jericho Quinn series—NATIONAL SECURITY, ACT OF TERROR and STATE OF EMERGENCY (available now)— features an adventure motorcyclist, Air Force OSI agent and renaissance man who spends his days sorting out his life and kicking terrorist butt.   Marc lives in Alaska with his beautiful bride and BMW motorcycle.

Visit him at:

www.marccameronbooks.com  

http://www.facebook.com/MarcCameronAuthor 

Velocipedes, Bank Heists, & Cattle Drives by @JacquieRogers #western

May in the Old West

by Jacquie Rogers

May of 1869 brought warmer weather, the snow was mostly melted, and everyone was ready to get back to making a living. "Now that spring has opened, prospectors are starting out in all directions.  Quite a number left here during the past week."

New contraptions, too.  People in the West worked hard, but they played just as hard.  From the May 29, 1869 issue of The Owyhee Avalanche:

AT BOISE: Several of our citizens are now velocipeding at the Capital, among whom are John Wilson, Postmaster Bradly, Judge Miller, Frank Ganahl, A. P. Minear, and John T. Boyle.

1869 Velocipede

Besides a good time, Mr. Minear found a good way to promote his business.  His family livery rented velocipedes.  Here's a news item that was also in the May 29 issue:

LIVERY STABLE. John Minear and Col. Kirkpatrick, two broths of boys, design opening, next week, the old Rogers and Brinkerhoff stable, on Jordan street, where they will be most happy to furnish their patrons with any grade of riding animals, from a velocipede up.  They intend to keep on hand and in readiness all classes of vehicles from a wheelbarrow to a family carriage; and will board stock at reasonable prices; and will pledge their word to not take the barley away from the animal after the owner turns his back on the stable.

I'm not sure what "two broths of boys" refers to exactly, but probably "brothers."  [Please let me know if you have any idea.]  You have to wonder why that last sentence was included, but apparently it was a common swindle.

Talk about rowdy, the better weather brought out the best and the worst.  Nothing like a heist attempt to get the blood pumping.  This was in the May 1, 1869 issue:

BOLD.  Five men, masked, entered in daylight the office of Wells, Fargo & co., at Truckee [Nevada], when people were continually passing on the sidewalk; three of them went in at the front door and two at the back, presenting cocked pistols at the officers and another person.  The clerk seized a chair and struck one of the robbers a blow over the head.  The villains then fired several shots, fortunately missing each time.  Becoming alarmed for their personal safety, the robbers fled, minus booty.

Even in the remotest areas of the Old West, citizens were interested in national and international politics.  President Grant had a few detractors and a political mess when he took office in 1869.  In retrospect, Grant didn't get a whole lot of support from his party, and he wasn't a very good puppet, either.  Worst of all, he was a lousy politician.  Here's what The Owyhee Avalanche had to say about the president in the May 29, 1869 issue:

THE PRESIDENT.  We would judge from what we read in the papers from all quarters, that the porphyry chair of State to which General Grant has been elected is not so easy to seat as might be after all.  Gen. Grant and Mr. Fish [Secretary of State], are in a very unpleasant dilemma; and for our country's sake I feel sorry for them.  We do not believe that Secretary Fish, in justice to himself, can hold his position very long.  The leaders in Congress are making it too warm for the Secretary.  It is not so easy for the President to retire from the conflict in which he finds himself engaged.  We have no doubt but that our present Congress intends to rule the President or do all they can to ruin him.

Hamilton Fish

Hamilton Fish was Secretary of State for eight years and is considered on of our finest, so the Avalanche editor underestimated the Secretary's tenaciousness.  He reformed the Civil Service, created the government archives, and his foreign policies put the USA on a course to become a world leader.

Before the days of the FDIC, bank failure could be the ruination of a lifetime's work, so it was a personal disaster as well as a community loss.  No wonder so many people buried their savings in the back yard.  This is from the May 1, 1869 issue:

THOMAS COLE, Jr. & Co.  It is currently reported that this banking firm, doing business in granite block [an area of Silver City, Idaho Terr.], has failed.  We have been unable thus far to gain an definite knowledge concerning the matter, and are therefore unprepared to say to what extent the report may be correct.  If it is true, we regret to know it.  It is an unfortunate circumstance for this community.

About money, I've never heard of two-cent or three-cent coins, so I'm not quite sure what this next item, printed May 6, 1871, in The Owyhee Avalanche means exactly.

THE NICKEL'S COMING.  We see by the dispatches from San Francisco that the Bank of California has commenced using one, two and three cents, and that they are retailing for currency at par.  We suppose we shall soon have them in circulation here.  If whisky now would only get down to three cents a glass--the old price in the States--there would really be some chance for a poor man to live.

Spring brings cattle, too.  The tops of arid mountains that were being torn up by placer mining was no place to raise cattle, so all the beef had to be brought in.  By 1871 a few ranches had been established in Owyhee County, but driving them to Silver City was another matter--had to wait until spring.  Even so, it was often cheaper to bring stock up from Texas. From the May 13, 1871 issue:

BACK AGAIN.  Con Shea got back from Colorado this week in advance of his drove, consisting of 900 head of fat beef cattle which will arrive here in a few weeks.  The cattle were driven from Texas last fall and wintered near Fort Lyon, in Colorado Territory, where they throve remarkably well.  Tom Bugbee sold out his stock on the Arkansas River and has gone back to Texas for more, and to get himself a wife.  Mr. Shea is an enterprising gentleman and has been very fortunate in his cattle speculations.  Owyhee need not fear a scarcity this season.

I hope Mr. Bugbee had good luck procuring his cattle and wife.

Short items from various March issues of The Owyhee Avalanche from 1866 to 1873:

• H. E. Leslie's photograph gallery is now in operation.
• On Monday, May 1st, the Northwestern stage came in on wheels for the first time this spring.
• Those in want of wallpaper will find a large variety of it at Rupert's drug store, as he has just received 1,700 rolls.
• The textbooks used in school are Webster's spellers, Wilson's readers, Spenserian writers, Davies' arithmetic, Cornell's and Montieth's geographies, Pinncoe's grammar, and Qwackenbush's history.

May Events

• May 6, 1859: John Gregory strikes gold at Clear Creek near what is now Denver.
• May 20, 1862: President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, allowing citizens to claim a quarter-section of land.  They could either live on the land and improve it for five years, or pay $1.25 per acre after six months.
• May 26: 1863: Bill Fairweather and Henry Edgar strike gold in Alder Gulch, Idaho Territory, now known as Virginia City, Montana.
• May 10, 1868: The U.S. Army applied its brand to a horse that caught Captain Miles Keogh's eye.  He only rode the horse in battle.  His name--Commanche, the sole Army survivor of the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
• May 23, 1868: Kit Carson dies of an abdominal aortic aneurysm in the surgeon's quarters at Fort Lyon, Colorado.
• May 10, 1869--Leland Stanford drove the Golden Spike into laurel ties at Promontory Summit, Utah, signifying the completion of the transcontinental railroad.
• May 18, 1871: Satanta led 150 Kiowa and Commanche on an attack of the Warren wagon train, hauling grain to Fort Griffin, Texas.  Six teamsters and the wagon master, Nathan Long, were killed.
• May 3, 1873: In Arizona Territory, Manual Fernandez was hanged for the mutilation death of Mike McCartney--Fernandez was the territory's first legal hanging.
• May 6, 1877: Crazy Horse led his people to the Red Cloud Agency on the promise that they'd be allowed to live in the Powder River country.  On the same day, Chief Sitting Bull arrived with his people in Wood Mountain, Saskatchewan, getting the rest of his people out of the U.S. Cavalry's way after the Battle of the Little Bighorn the previous year.
• May 1, 1878:  The Texas Rangers recruited Jim Murphy to infiltrate the Sam Bass gang for inside inside information, which led to Bass' capture and death in July.
• May 17, 1883: Residents of Columbus, Nebraska, were treated to the first performance of "The Wild West—Hon. W.F. Cody and Dr. W.F. Carver’s Rocky Mountain and Prairie Exhibition."
• May 6, 1885: Major fires broke out in Livingston, Billings, and Miles City, Montana, all on the same day.
• May 2, 1890: Congress created the Oklahoma Territory.

May your saddle never slip.

Jacquie Rogers 
Website, Facebook, 
Twitter, Goodreads, 
Romancing The West
Hearts of Owyhee series
#1: Much Ado About Marshals
#2: Much Ado About Madams
#3: Much Ado About Mavericks

CAROL CRIGGER, YOU ARE MY WINNER!

CAROL CRIGGER is the winner for my drawing for a copy of FIRE EYES! Carol, please contact me at fabkat_edit@yahoo.com for your prize! Thanks so much for stopping by and commenting!

Congratulations!

RESEARCH ODDITIES: TAMAHA TALES BY CHERYL PIERSON

Hi everyone!

First, let me start off by saying that I'm giving away an e-copy of my book, FIRE EYES, today to one commenter! All you have to do is leave a comment and please include your contact info in case you win!

I have kind of an odd research topic today. Because everything I write takes place in Oklahoma or Texas, and because I was born and raised in Oklahoma, most of my research tools are right at my fingertips. Talking to older people in the area, going to the actual places where my stories are set, and visiting museums and landmarks are all part of my research practices for just about all my novels. Louis L’Amour said that if he wrote about a creek or a particular landmark, it was authentic; that is was actually where he said it was and looked the way he described it. I don’t quite go that far, but I try to keep the setting and every other component of my writing as true to life as possible. In order to do that, sometimes you just have to “be there.”

Tamaha, Oklahoma, was an unlikely candidate to be included in my story, FIRE EYES, until I visited there. But how its inclusion came about is a story in itself—and proves that sometimes our research, as that other saying goes, “happens.”


Though there’s very little to say about the actual town of Tamaha as it exists today, I couldn’t help but use it in my story, Fire Eyes, which was first released in May 2009 then re-released through WESTERN TRAIL BLAZER. In those long ago days of more than a century past, Tamaha was a thriving community.

There’s an odd thing that happened that made me include Tamaha in my book. I’d been working on it, and had come to the part where the villain and his gang needed to reference a landmark. But which one? And what was the significance? As I said, I try to stay as historically accurate in my writing as possible, and this story takes place in the eastern part of the state, toward the Arkansas/Oklahoma border. I must admit, I’m not as familiar with that part of the state as I am with the central part, since that’s where I was born and raised. A lot of these smaller towns don’t even dot the map, and I had never heard of Tamaha, until one day in May, 2005.

I’d just spoken with a lifelong friend, DaNel Jennings, who now lives in a town in that eastern area of the state. In the course of the conversation, she mentioned that she and her husband, Jeff, were doing some genealogical research and she had learned she had some relatives buried in a small cemetery in Tamaha. Now, the intriguing part of this was that her relatives bore the same last name as my maiden name, “Moss.”

“Wouldn’t it be funny if we really WERE related?” she asked. We’d always secretly hoped we were, and pretended that we were, when we were kids, growing up across the street from one another.

“Yes,” I said with a laugh, “but where in the HECK is Tamaha?” She began trying to tell me where it was, and I said, “Never mind. It’s a good thing Jeff knows where he’s going. Let me know what you find.”

I hung up, wistfully wishing that I could go with her—but that was a three-hour drive and they were leaving the next day.

A couple of hours later, my sister Karen called. “Cheryl, I need you to come down this weekend,” she said. I was really intrigued, because she is my “much older” sister—10 years older—and usually, it was me "needing" her for one thing or another, not the other way around.

“What’s going on?”

“I promised Mr. Borin I would take him to visit his family's graves in Tamaha—”

I never heard the rest of her sentence. I was sure I had misunderstood. “Where?”

“Tamaha," she repeated.

“Wait," I said. "I have to tell you something.” I couldn’t believe it. I’d never heard of this place before, and now, within the space of 2 hours, two people who were very close to me had told me they were going to be going to the cemetery there!

Chills ran through me. This was no mere “coincidence.” I promised her I would be there—no matter what—Friday afternoon. We would be going on Saturday morning.

I would never have found the place on my own. I doubt that Mapquest even has it on their site. But Mr. Borin, an older gentleman my sister had befriended in years past at church, knew exactly where to go. Once we got there, I stepped out and found the headstones for the “Moss” family. It was amazing to think that my best friend, DaNel, whom I had not seen in over a year, had been standing where I was just a few days earlier—a place neither of us had been before. Again, I wondered what our research through family ancestry would yield. Were we related, as we’d always hoped? There was an incredible sense of connection, for me, not only for what we were doing that day for Mr. Borin and his long dead relatives, but for what DaNel and I might discover about our own.

As the three of us, Karen, Mr. Borin, and I stood in the quiet peacefulness of the old cemetery, a man made his way toward us. “Can I help you?” he asked. We explained why we were there. “Let me show you the historical side of Tamaha while you’re here,” he said cheerfully. He had lived there all his life, and there was no detail about the once-thriving community and surrounding area that he didn’t know. He was glad to share his knowledge, and believe me, I was writing in my little notebook as fast as I could while he talked.

The cemetery is on a bluff overlooking the Arkansas River. “Right down there is where the J.R. Williams was sunk. She was a Confederate ship, but when the Union seized her, they changed the name to the J.R. Williams. Then, Stand Watie and his men seized her back.”(June 15, 1864) Our guide chuckled at the thought.

NOTE: (Stand Watie was one of only two Native American brigadier generals in the War Between the States. He was the last Confederate officer to lay down his arms, and was also Chief of the Cherokee Nation at the time.)

“Come on, I’ll show you the largest black oak tree in Oklahoma—and the oldest.” Sure enough, it stood towering over one of the first buildings of the settlement of Tamaha, dating back to the 1800’s.

Next, we visited the town jail, the oldest jail in Oklahoma, built in 1886. We were able to walk right into it and take pictures. “We’re trying to get money up to preserve it,” he said. It stood in the middle of an overgrown field. “Watch out for snakes, hon,” he told me. Yep, he didn’t have to tell me twice. My eyes were peeled. This oldest jail in Oklahoma still stands near Kerr Lake at Tamaha. Tamaha was one of the earliest port towns and trading centers in the Choctaw Nation, I.T. Choctaws were brought from Mississippi up the Arkansas River to Tamaha on steamboats as early as 1831.

Tamaha developed as a port and ferry crossing around 1836. The post office was built in 1884, and the jail in 1886. The last steamboat landed in 1912, three miles east of Stigler, another nearby landmark.

When we left, I knew I had my landmarks that I needed for my book. I had seen it, and my imagination took over. It was the “jog” I needed to get on with the writing, but I will never believe for one minute that it was coincidence.

I use many research resources, but because of the nature of what I love to write, and because I have been so blessed to actually grow up in the area that I’m writing about, I feel like the most invaluable resource available to me are the people and places I meet and visit. It’s all around me.


But my day of research at Tamaha is one that I will never forget, and that I’m so glad to have been able to take part in. Have any of you ever experienced anything like this? Some kind of remarkable occurrence that has affected your writing in some way? Do you classify that as “research”? Share it, if you have—I know I can’t be the only one!

Below is an excerpt from FIRE EYES. I hope you enjoy it!
Remember to leave a comment for a chance to win an e-copy of FIRE EYES! I'll draw a name this evening, so be sure to check back tomorrow morning to see if YOU are the lucky winner!


EXCERPT FROM FIRE EYES:


THE SET UP: A stranger has shown up at Jessica’s door in the evening. She is reluctant to let him inside, even though good manners would dictate that she find him a meal and a place to bed down. There is something about him she doesn’t like—and with good reason, as we find out.


“Evenin’, ma’am.”

The stranger looked down the business end of Jessica’s Henry repeater. It was cocked and ready for action.

She drew a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves. She stood just inside the cabin door, the muzzle of the rifle gleaming in the lamplight that spilled around her from the interior.

He raised his hands and gave her a sheepish grin. “Don’t mean to startle you. Just hopin’ for a meal. Settlers are few and far between in these here parts.”

“Where’s your horse?” She didn’t lower the gun.

“Well, funny thing. I kinda hate to admit it.” He rubbed the back of his neck and looked away. “I, uh, lost him. Playin’ poker.”

“Where?”

“Over to Tamaha.”

“You’re quite a ways from Tamaha,” she said. “Even farther from where I expect you call home.”

He gave a slow, white grin. “More recently, I hail from the Republic of Texas.”

Jessica raised her chin a notch. It was almost as if this man invited dissension. She disliked the cool, unperturbed way he said it. The Republic of Texas. “Texas is a state, Mister. Has been for over twenty years.”

“Well, now,” he said, placing his booted foot on the bottom porch step. “I guess that all depends on who you’re talkin’ to.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she stepped back to shut the door. “I think you better—”

“Ma’am, I’m awful hungry. I’d be glad for any crumb you could spare.”

“What did you say your name was?” Her voice shook, and she cleared her throat to cover her nervousness. Most people had better manners than to show up right at dark.

“I didn’t. But, it’s Freeman. Andy Freeman.”

“Are you related to Dave Freeman?”

“He’s my brother.” He gave her a sincere look. “Look, ma’am, I’d sure feel a heap better talkin’ to you if I wasn’t lookin’ at you through that repeater. I been lookin’ for Dave.” There was an excited hopefulness in his tone. “You seen him? Ma, she sent me up here after him. She’s just a-hankerin’ for news of him. He ain’t real good about letter-writin’.”

Jessica sighed and lowered the rifle. “Come on in, Mr. Freeman. I’ll see what I can find for you to eat, and give you what news I have of your brother.”

“Thank you, Ma’am. I sure do appreciate your hospitality.”

TO ORDER FIRE EYES OR ANY OF MY OTHER BOOKS OR SHORT STORIES, VISIT MY AMAZON PAGE HERE:

https://www.amazon.com/author/cherylpierson

COOKING WILD AND WONDERFUL by L.J. MARTIN

While on our honeymoon in 1985 Kat and I wheeled our little rented Fiat off the highway into Parma (the home of Parmigiano-Reggiano), in the middle of Italy between Portofino and Venice. We wandered into an Italian restaurant on the square in front of the local castle (where no one spoke much English) and told them in our broken Italian/English, “Please, bring us what you’re proud of.” If you’re adventurous it’s a phrase that always brings a smile to the waiter and the very best to your plate. We had a fabulous meal, beginning with bruchettas, but what impressed me most was the cart the waiter rolled to the table with a half dozen pastas in various sauces and a half dozen vegetable dishes, in addition to our entree. It was take what you want, the Italian version of a buffet, only with black tie service…and fabulous is an understatement. Come to think of it, I want to go back!

Here's a continuation of that gourmet supper, the soup and salad course:

Gourmet Supper for Eight

Appetizers:

Served with Champagne
Crab artichoke dip or tapanade
Crunchy Parmesan Onion Squares
Bruchettas:
Mushroom
Tomato
Zucchini

Soup:

Shellfish in clear bullion

Salad:

Lobster, avocado, fresh grapefruit on butter lettuce

Fish Course:

Salmon and asparagus in parchment (en pappette)

Citrus Sorbet

Beef Course:

Tenderloin strip basted in simple sauce (see recipe)
Mushroom Gravy
Port wine reduction
Red & Yukon Gold potatoes, boiled and braised

Dessert:

Berry mélange in phyllo cups with Cointreau whipped cream

After dinner: Coffee, liquors, and a great single malt

Soup

Shellfish in bullion

• 1 lemon
• 6 chicken bullion cubes
• 4 cups of water
• 16 mussels in the shell
• 16 clams in the shell
• 8 large sea scallops
• ¼ cup fresh parsley (Italian if possible)
• 1 heaping tablespoon of cilantro
• 1 bunch of green onions
• ½ cube of butter
• sea salt and white pepper (or plain salt and pepper)

This is a simple but elegant soup. Chop parsley. Chop white portions of green onions, leaving tops whole. Trim green tops and slice the long way, so you have long tender shoots of green. Clean shellfish by soaking for a few minutes in cold water (don’t leave too long or you’ll drown the clams and mussels) and remove beards from mussels. Boil water, white portions of onions, and bullion cubes until dissolved. Slice lemon very, very thin, and remove seeds. Drop in shellfish until the first shell opens, then add scallops and cook until the scallops are no longer translucent. This will only take a very few minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve in large shallow soup bowls, with two mussels, two clams and one scallop per bowl, garnish each bowl with a sprinkled ½ teaspoon of parsley, sprinkled pinch of cilantro, a couple of thin seeded lemon slices, a crisscross of three or five green onion strands, and a thin pad of butter floating in the middle, and serve.

Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, or a dry PinoGrigio

Salad

Lobster, grapefruit, avocado, butter lettuce

• 2 cups lobster meat (two large or four small tails will do, equal amount of jumbo shrimp or king crab will work)
• 1 large head or two small heads cold butter lettuce
• 2 14oz jars or cans of pink grapefruit (reserve juice)


For more great recipes, grab a copy of L.J.'s cookbook here: http://www.amazon.com/Cooking-Wild-Wonderful-gourmets-ebook/dp/B004UICW36/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1357881958&sr=1-1&keywords=cooking+wild+and+wonderful

Review Roundup: Sympathy for the Devil

Red Lands Outlaw: the Ballad of Henry Starr
By Phil Truman
Roots & Branches, July 2012
$14.95 paperback, ISBN 1620160129
$2.99 Kindle, ASIN B008NYEHX6
208 pages

Nearly 100 years after his death, Henry Starr remains a somewhat controversial figure in the Southwest. One of the most prolific, if not the most financially successful, bank robbers in western history, Starr’s reputation often disappears behind those belonging to his distant relative by marriage, Belle Starr, and to flashier, more violent owlhoots like Jesse James and John Dillinger.

To the people of Oklahoma, though, Starr was — and remains — a native-son celebrity. Whether he was a tragic folk hero or a master manipulator remains open for debate, but one thing seems certain: Starr was a product of his time.

Nominated for the 2013 Best Western First Novel Peacemaker Award, Phil Truman’s Red Lands Outlaw is less novel than fictionalized biography. Truman reveals in a frontnote that although many of the interactions in the book are made up, the framework is historically accurate. Within that framework, Truman does a remarkable job of creating sympathy for a larger-than-life antihero.

Outcast almost from birth because of mixed heritage and descent from one of the families in an Indian Territory feud that rivaled that of the Hatfields and McCoys, Truman’s Starr is unjustly branded a criminal as a teenager. He rides for that brand for the rest of his life, occasionally taking a trail toward legitimacy only to abandon the effort when going straight veers into tedium. Under Truman’s pen, the adrenaline rush of pulling a job becomes Starr’s drug of choice, and it’s powerfully addicting. The episodic plot winds through about three decades of the outlaw’s life, hitting both highs (avoiding execution several times for the same murder, receiving a Presidential pardon, movie stardom) and lows (losing his one true love and his son, multiple incarcerations) as Starr reinvents himself again and again in an effort to fit somewhere in a society both fascinated and repulsed by a living legend.

When Starr finally bows out in what is less a blaze of glory than a tragic combination of underestimation and over-adequate ego, he is resigned to a destiny he both orchestrated and feels powerless to change.

Truman’s storytelling shines throughout, leaving readers with the inescapable conclusion Starr likely would have approved of the tale. The author’s greater success, though, is in nurturing in readers a doomed hope that the handsome, charismatic Red Lands outlaw will come to a happier end.


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

THE FORTY-NINERS AND THE DANGERS THEY FACED by CHARLIE STEEL

In my research for the book, THE FORTY-NINERS, many startling revelations about this historical event came to light—disturbing facts about the famous gold rush of which perhaps most of us are unaware. It is my intention to write three short pieces (to be published at three month intervals) outlining the events that took place in California regarding those people who will forever be known as the FORTY-NINERS. Also, at the end of this narrative is a short piece explaining how California gold was formed from the earth’s crust and then concentrated over millions of years of erosion.

(My book, THE FORTY-NINERS, is to be published for the West of the Big River series by Western Fictioneers. It is to come out sometime in the future in digital format and as a trade paperback book.)


Part 2
THE FORTY-NINERS AND THE DANGERS THEY FACED

Just imagine, word of a great gold discovery spreads across the eastern United States and very quickly around the world. The discovery of gold must be true, because President Polk said it in his speech and the papers reported it. Young and middle aged men, young fathers, farmers, clerks, students, those filled with the desire to change their lives, to change their destiny dropped everything and found money enough to start their journey. Most did not begin until six months after the announced discovery. For them all, no matter which route they took to the far away land on the Pacific Ocean, it took them nearly six months more to reach the gold fields.

Those who went by ship faced months at sea traveling 18,000 miles, encountered storms, unfavorable winds, and suffered a poor diet, scurvy, and disease. Those who went by land encountered an army of men all trying to survive for five months along the trail. They too faced dangerous storms, heavily trodden trails with scarce grass, thieves, hostiles, little or no water, diseases, accident, and malnutrition. All this, before even reaching the gold fields.



The first to arrive were those nearest the gold fields. That would include those few 700 non-natives in San Francisco, Californios, men from Willamette Valley, Oregon, Canada, South America, and the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). The very ships bringing in Argonauts (as they were first called) and supplies, lost their crews, who deserted to the gold fields. Eventually the abandoned ships ended up being used for storage, saloons, living quarters, and even land fill. As word spread further, soldiers deserted, clerks, and workers left their posts, all in an effort to be first to strike it rich.

Whether traveling by sea or land, they first called themselves Argonauts and then later Forty-niners. They tended to be young men between the ages of 20 and 40. Few women came, but those who did traveled with their husbands, or came alone to charge high prices for cooking food, doing laundry, or to work in saloons, at gambling, or prostitution.

Of the 80,000 Forty-niners that arrived in 1849, half came by sea and the other half by land. Those that came by land either took the southern land route from Texas through Arizona, most taking the more famous California Trail. Two thirds were Americans who arrived in California. The remainder of Forty-niners came from nearly every country in the world, including China.

The miners, finding themselves without laws, goods or services, many pushed for greater communication and contact with the United States. Increased shipping, the completion of the Panama Railway (in 1855), and scheduled mail carrying steamships, helped carry more supplies and passengers to the miners.

After the war with Mexico, Congress argued over what to do with California, whether to bring it into the Union as a free or slave state. Military Governors ran California in the interim and in September 1849 the California Constitutional Convention met in Monterey to write a state constitution. It was ratified on November 13, 1849. Following, came a provisional state government that formed counties, elected senators, representatives, and a governor. This state government functioned for nearly a year, when California was given statehood by Congress on September 9, 1850. California officially became the 31st state. It was certainly gold, and a sudden increase in population to one hundred thousand, that in two short years after the Mexican-American War, made it possible for California to so suddenly enter the Union as a free state.

The U.S. military did not reach into the mountains and gold fields of California and at the beginning of the gold rush, and directly after the Guadalupe-Hildago Treaty ending the war with Mexico, there were no laws to follow and no stable government. The absence of authority left it to the miners to follow their own volitions and whims. The prejudices of the day influenced the majority, and in many places complete chaos and lawlessness reined.

Miners lived in make-shift tents, crudely built shelters of boards, or sticks, and endured the changing climate, heat, cold, and storms. There were no laws defining what a claim was, and many disputes resulted in conflict. What laws existed were those made up by the miners themselves. The mining camps formed their own kind of enforcement, and mobs and vigilante behavior was prevalent. In the gold camps, miners faced thieves, hostile Indians, exposure, meager food supplies, malnutrition, death and disease on a daily basis. Some reports claim one out of twelve Forty-niners died. Other estimates were as high as one out of five.

Placer mining for gold was excessively hard backbreaking work. Men stood beside or in cold streams, ten or more hours a day, moving and washing hundreds of bucketfuls of dirt. Some found gold, especially those who came early. Others who came later were not so lucky. Essentially placer mining, finding gold in gravel beds near the earth’s surface, was virtually played out by 1853-55. Only large groups of men collaborating their efforts, or the big companies, (beginning hard rock mining, and later hydraulic mining and dredging) with money to invest in large equipment, were successful at gold mining after this time period.

As the gold fields filled with miners, disputes between mining claims increased. There was no law defining claims and miners made up their own rules. In the search for more land to mine, the Indians who inhabited the area were forcefully removed. The native men were killed by miners, their women and children taken as slave laborers, and some of the women forced into sexual bondage. For as long as the gold camps existed, no Native American appeared to be safe from continued death, debauchery, slavery, and assimilation. Those who didn’t flee or remain hidden were subjected to endless violence and persecution. With the flood of miners the delicate balance of sufficient food for the Indians ended and many who did escape faced constant starvation. Their native land was taken, access to berries, acorns, game, and fish, became impossible. Game became scarcer as miners hunted for their own needs and the streams became polluted with silt, mercury, and cyanide— and the fish died.

As more and more Forty-niners descended upon the gold fields, further pressure for mining claims increased, thus causing blatant discrimination against foreigners. Whites pushed Blacks, Chinese, Indians, Spanish, and anyone speaking a foreign language off their claims. Eventually, as bigger mining companies began larger scale operations and hard rock mining, discriminatory laws were passed to gain more gold. For those who were not murdered or pushed off their claims, foreigners were charged monthly fees to continue their mining claims.

Miners did well to eke out an existence in the gold fields. Those who were lucky and worked hard to move a lot of mud and gravel could collect eight to twenty-five dollars a day. This was a lot of money for the time, and miners felt rich at such a daily profit, but prices were also astronomically high. A loaf of bread that cost 4 cents in any other city back east, cost 75 cents, coffee $5.00, apples $1.00, eggs $1.00 to $3.00 apiece. Knives could cost $30.00, a gold pan $15.00, a meal cooked at a make-shift eatery and prepared by a female hand, $25.00. Few individuals walked away with any kind of riches. Those who did were the early comers in the first two years of placer mining. Later, it was the big mining companies that raked in the larger profits and many of the single men who came for riches, ended up working as paid laborers.

Most gold miners were lucky to survive or break even.

A list of SOURCES for further examination of the history of the California Gold Rush of 1849

Access Genealogy, http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/california/ Retrieved March 10, 2013, a free on-line source for genealogy, funded by Ancestry and Footnote and other contributions of its users.

Rush for Riches: Gold Fever and the Making of California, J. S. Holiday, University of California Press, (1999)

A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn, Harper and Row, (1980)

Gold, Greed and Genocide, Unmasking the Myth of the 49ers, Project Underground pamphlet, (1998)

A Golden State: Mining and the Development of California, James J. Rawls, and Richard J. Orsi, Editors, University of California Press, (1999)

Americans and the California Dream: 1850-1915 Kevin Starr, Oxford University Press (1973)

Rooted in Barbarous Soil: People, Culture, and Community in Gold Rush California, Starr, Kevin and Orsi, Richard J., Editors, University of California Press. (2000)

Hausel, Dan. California-Gold Geology & Prospecting: http://califroniangold.blogspot.dk/ Retrieved March 18, 2013

California: A History, (Modern Library Chronicles) Kevin Starr, Random House (2005)

The Destruction of California Indians, University of Nebraska Press, Robert F. Heizer, (1974)

Genocide in Northwestern California: When our world cried, Indian Historian Press, Jack Norton (1979)

The California Indians: A Source Book, Robert F. Heizer (Editor) M. A. Whipple (Editor) (1971)

The Annals of San Francisco: Containing a Summary of the History of…California, John H. Gihon (Author), Frank Soule’ (Author), Jim Nisbet (Author), (2010) (Copy of D. Appleton & Co. New York and San Francisco 1855)

Seventy-five Years in San Francisco, William Heath Davis, (Author) Douglas S. Watson, (Editor), Published by John Howell,434 Post Street, San Francisco, (1929)
http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/history/hb75yidx.htm (Retrieved March 10, 2013)

Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America, Walter R. Borneman, Random House Trade Paperback (2009)

Review Roundup: Peacemaker Nominees (Short Stories)

The third-annual Peacemaker Awards winners will be announced June 1. Between now and then, I aim to review all the nominees in four posts. Let’s start with the nominees for 2013 Best Western Short Story, shall we?

I don’t envy the judges their task. All of the nominees in the category are so strong that choosing a favorite or defining “best” seems well-nigh impossible.

The reviews appear in alphabetical order by story title.

“Adeline”
By Wayne Dundee
in Protectors: Stories to Benefit PROTECT
Goombah Gumbo Press, August 2012

Wayne Dundee’s short story about a hardened bounty hunter and a jaded madam who band together to preserve a child’s innocence is the only nominee not set at Christmastime. The heartwarming tale explores themes of regret and redemption as the bounty hunter and the madam embark on a plan to rescue a precocious pre-teen girl from the sexual slavery they suspect awaits her after a farmer claims the girl during an Orphan Train stop. The writing is top-notch, emotive, and action-packed, but never maudlin or preachy. Proceeds from the sale of the anthology benefit the National Organization to Protect Children, a non-profit supporting non-partisan legislative that protects children from abuse, exploitation, and neglect.



“Christmas Comes to Freedom Hill”
By Troy D. Smith
in Christmas Campfire Companion
Port Yonder Press, November 2011

Troy Smith’s fiction always is notable for the way it breathes life into little-discussed slices of American history. This tale, told in first-person as though an elderly black man were recounting one of the seminal moments in his life, combines two such slices: The Works Progress Administration’s Great Depression effort to document the memories and experiences of former slaves, and the Exodusters, former slaves who headed west after the Civil War with the hope of escaping bigotry and oppression. Filtering a child’s sense of wonder through the wisdom of age, the narrator describes for a WPA interviewer how his sheriff-father’s faith saved the upstart Exoduster town of Freedom Hill, Kansas, from destruction at the hands of a white cattle baron. Not a shot is fired; instead the story brims with a High Noon-type of tension as it becomes apparent the lawman will confront the ruthless baron and his gang alone. Smith’s prose is eloquent and evocative, ultimately making the point that no matter how different the external trappings, inside all men share the same hopes, dreams, desires, and needs.


“Christmas for Evangeline”
By C. Courtney Joyner
in Six-Guns and Slay Bells: A Creepy Cowboy Christmas
Western Fictioneers, October 2012

The creepiness in C. Courtney Joyner’s contribution to Six-Guns and Slay Bells creeps up on readers. Haunted by a bank robbery that went awry two years earlier, a banker and a reformed outlaw share a drink on Christmas Eve, only to discover the crime they thought they got away with won’t go unpunished. While the banker sinks ever deeper into madness and the increasingly spooked outlaw tries to talk him back from the edge of a cliff that will destroy them both, the ghostly presence of a beautiful suicide — collateral damage from the bank robbery — manipulates both men…with gruesome results. The twist at the end is sure to leave a chill.


“Keepers of Camelot”
By Cheryl Pierson
in Six-Guns and Slay Bells: A Creepy Cowboy Christmas
Western Fictioneers, October 2012

Cheryl Pierson’s genre-blending time-travel tale overlays her usual gritty style with a softer, more psychological veneer. Exploring themes of loyalty, love, and forgiveness, “Keepers of Camelot” finds King Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot “reborn” in the Old West as, respectively, a gun-toting drifter, a stagecoach way-station owner’s wife, and an Apache warrior. Though they’ve caught glimpses of one another several times during their centuries of life-hopping, this Christmastide is the first time all three have come face to face since Lance and Ginny’s betrayal of Arthur killed Camelot. According to legend, the Once and Future King will return when and where he’s needed, but Arthur is weary of returning again and again. An orphaned teenage boy’s unshakeable belief in the legend holds the key to peace for all of them. Even those who are not fond of time-travel stories will enjoy this bittersweet tale.


“The Toys”
By James J. Griffin
in Six-Guns and Slay Bells: A Creepy Cowboy Christmas
Western Fictioneers, October 2012

James J. Griffin’s “The Toys” presents another descent into madness at the hands of the supernatural. This time, a gunman hired by powerful cattlemen intent on ridding the open range of nesters discovers ruthlessness at Christmas carries a steep price. Pitting guilt against innocence and might against right in the microcosm of one man’s thoughts, Griffin delivers ironic retribution from an unlikely source — leaving readers to decide whether the gunman destroyed himself from within. The style and theme are fairly typical for Griffin, though the outlaw protagonist is something of a departure. Griffin’s badmen always get what’s coming to them — no surprise there. The difference here lies in the way the inevitable justice is delivered.


Kathleen Rice Adams is a Texan, a voracious reader, a professional journalist, and a novelist in training. She received review copies of all except Protectors: Stories to Benefit PROTECT from the author or publisher. Her opinions are her own and are neither endorsed nor necessarily supported by Western Fictioneers or individual members of the organization.

FRIDAY FIVE WITH J.E.S. HAYS!

Give a hearty welcome to J.E.S. Hays, who joins us today with her answers to five burning questions we need to know!

1. The most exciting day of my life was the day a baby whale surfaced nearly underneath our tour boat in Kauai'i. I'd been diving all morning, and chose a relaxing boat ride for the afternoon. Suddenly, the pilot cut the motor, jerking everyone forward as we did the oceanic equivalent of skidding to a stop. Directly beside the boat, a large gray back appeared, nearly close enough to touch. If the motor had still been running, we'd have hit the baby with the propeller. We watched it swim away, and when it was several hundred yards off, we saw the backs of its two caretakers, most likely the mother and an "auntie." I could well imagine the scolding that baby got for venturing so close to a boat full of humans!





2. My favorite food is shrimp in any form. The best I ever had was when my marine biology class was sampling the bay, and we kept all the shrimp and boiled them up as we caught them. You can't get fresher than that.





3. Something you may not know about me is that I once traveled to Dublin to hear U2 in concert. I had been planning a trip to "The Old Country" to visit the land of my family's roots, and found that the band was playing their home city that year, so I arranged my holiday around the concert. That was another fantastic vacation, with an extraordinary performance to boot.





4. One book I reread often is O Jerusalem by Laurie R. King. The detailed culture and setting never fail to capture my imagination, and I adore the characters. I can well imagine a woman like Russell catching the interest of Sherlock Holmes, and the brothers Hazr are endlessly fascinating.





5. An interesting fact about my genealogy is that I could be my great-great grandfather's twin. I have an old photo from the Civil War era, and except for the hairstyle, we look practically identical.

Ranger Jim’s Ramblings for May

First, I want to apologize for going AWOL last month. I’d like to say Yankee and I were out on a long search and rescue mission with the horse Patrol. I’d like to say that, but the truth is the second Thursday of April snuck up and got by me before I even realized it.

I’m going to start off this month, as usual, with a quiz. First person who comes up with the correct answer will win a signed copy of my Jim Blawcyzk novel Death Stalks the Rangers.

We all, or most of us, know that to cowboys in the frontier West coffee meant Arbuckle’s. My question is what was packed in every container of Arbuckle’s which had cowboys on a trail drive clamoring to be first to answer Cookie’s call “Who wants to grind the coffee?”

Now, let’s mosey on to more horse factoids. I’m going to pass along some nuggets that will help anyone who writes Westerns be more accurate in their horse descriptions. A lot of little things that can make a difference. Those of you who have read my books know that the horses are every much characters as the human protagonists in my stories. A lot of writers don’t recognize that, but a man on horseback for days or weeks at a time forged a strong bond with his horse. Both human and equine depended on each other, in many cases for survival itself. A western where the horses aren’t part of the story is just missing something.

We’ll start with horse colors. There are lots of variations of horse colors, but the basic ones are black, bay, chestnut, gray, and white. Even today, debate still goes on about whether there are true black horses, or just very dark bays, and true white horses. (Not counting albinos, which usually don’t survive). I tend to believe there are true blacks. Then we have duns and buckskins, palominos, grullas, roans, and all manner of color terms.

Bay horses are varying shades of dark brown, with black points, mane and tail.

Chestnuts are reddish-brown horses with red points, and red or flaxen mane and tail.

It can be difficult on occasion to tell a bay from a chestnut. Always keep in mind the points- legs and ears - and the mane and tail. A bay will have black points, mane and tail, a chestnut red or flaxen.

A sorrel is a variety of chestnut, usually more reddish. The term sorrel is more commonly used for Western horses than European.

Palominos are golden-colored horses, with light or white manes and tails.

Duns and buckskins look very similar, but a buckskin tends to have a more uniform color. Grullas are mouse-colored.

A gray is, of course, gray. Gray is the color which most often appears as “dapple”, or spotted.

Roans are horses whose coat is sprinkled with white hairs. A strawberry roan is a horse with brown or red hair for its main coat color, a blue roan is a horse with gray for its main coat color.

Paints and pintos, terms which were used interchangeably in the west, are horses splotched with white. They were sometimes called “calico”.

Piebald and skewbald were terms used to distinguish paint colors, although not used commonly in the West. They are pretty much in disuse today, although still used in Europe. A piebald is a black and white paint. A skewbald is a paint of any color but black.

And of course Appaloosas have their own distinct spotting patterns, which I discussed last time.

White markings:

If a horse has a diamond shaped mark on its forehead, that’s a star. A diamond shaped marking with a narrow strip going downward from the star is a star and strip. A short white, narrow mark on the muzzle is a snip. So, a horse can have a star, strip, and snip. (Yankee does).

A broad white mark down the face is a blaze. A horse whose blaze goes over both cheeks so that almost the entire face is white is called a bald-faced horse.

Socks are white markings on the hoof to the fetlocks. White markings from the hoof above the fetlocks to as high as the knees are stockings.

Blue-eyed horses were often called “glass-eyed”.

Enough about horse colors. Entire books have been written about them. Time for some other tidbits.

When a horse drinks, he doesn’t lap up water like a dog or cat. He sucks it in, much like a person sipping soda through a straw. Never describe a horse lapping up water. It doesn’t happen.

Horses also can’t pant, which I have seen written. Horses cannot breath through their mouths, only their nostrils, so it is physically impossible for a horse to pant. They can and do breath heavily, but they don’t pant.

Most of a horse’s head consists of nasal passages. A horse can have a hole shot through its long nasal passages, or one caused by injury, and still be able to breath.

Horses also cannot vomit. Their neck, throat, and esophageal muscles are too strong to let food come back up. That’s the reason colic is so dangerous, usually life-threatening, for a horse. It a horse gets a bowel obstruction, and can’t pass manure, if the condition isn’t treated quickly the horse’s intestines or stomach could twist, which is always fatal. The gas buildup from colic is extremely painful, and can cause the stomach or intestines to literally explode. In the old West, there was little to be done for colic, except for trying to walk the horse until the gut starts moving again. That’s still done today, until the vet arrives.

A horse who twists a shoe, but where the shoe doesn’t come off, will usually not want to step on the bent shoe at all, making him appear extremely lame. Once the bent shoe is removed, the horse will walk just fine, allowing for the unevenness of one shod foot and one not.

“Biscuit-eater” and “pie-biter” were terms cowboys used to describe horses spoiled by their owners, and which hung around camp begging for treats.

There were and are one-man horses, although they are extremely rare.

Most working cowboys didn’t own horses. They were assigned a string of mounts by the ranch which employed them. And, just like humans, some horses were specialists… some were roping horses, others cutters, and still other loved to “pop brush”, that is, chase out cows hiding in the thorny vegetation of the southwest.

And it is true that a lot of cowboys didn’t like paints or pintos, often referring to them disdainfully as “Indian ponies”. However, quite a few cowboys and Texas Rangers did favor pintos.

Finally, unlike today, there were no official “breeds” of horses. The various Western horse breed registries, such as American Quarter Horse, Pinto Horse Association, American Paint Horse, Appaloosa, and so on weren’t even established until the mid-1900s. So, when writing about a specific type of horse in a Western, you can write quarter horse, pinto, mustang, and so forth, but only as a type. Never capitalize Quarter Horse, Paint, Appaloosa, etc., as none of these animals existed as distinctive breeds in the old West era.

I hope I’ve provided at least a bit of useful information. Next time up, more Texas Ranger lore. How many bullets could a man take and survive in frontier Texas? One Ranger took eighteen while trying to stop a riot. Even more amazingly, he survived, stopped the riot and arrested several of the participants, then died… many years later, in bed, of old age.

Jim Griffin

Likeable . . . but wicked

I thought I had Clair Huffaker’s Posse from Hell on my bookshelf, but not at home. Maybe in my office, but that’s all the way in to Tokyo, and I’m sitting here in Chiba, 25 miles away. And it’s time to write a blog post for Wicked Wednesday. I’ll find Posse from Hell and show it to you on some other Wicked Wednesday.

I like Huffaker’s books. Cowboy. The Cowboy and the Cossack. War Wagon. Guns of Rio Concho. And in place of Posse from Hell, I’ve chosen Seven Ways from Sundown.

That’s the full name of a nine-day-old Texas Ranger—Seven Days From Sundown, tacked in front of a common last name: Smith. Usually, he went by Seven Smith.

Word comes that Jim Flood’s busted out of Yuma Prison, something that’s not happened before.

Well, Lieutenant Herly’s got his eye on a girl named Joy, but she’s got her eye on Seven. So what does the looie do? He sends Sergeant Hennessey and Seven Smith after Jim Flood.

The sergeant spends a bit of time to see if he can “make a gunfighter” out of Seven Smith.

Once they’re on the trail, we start to find out what kind of man Jim Flood is. Listen to this.

“You hear tell, lately, of a man around here named Jim Flood?”

The old woman came out of the door and stood on the second of two rickety steps leading up from the ground. “Why sure, mister. He was here not more’n a week ago or so. He had beans and coffee with my man and me.” She stopped with sudden suspicion. “And what might you be wanting with ‘im?”

“Just trying to find ‘im is all. Are you real sure it was Flood who was here, ma’am?”

“Sure?” The woman’s voice sang with resentment and she fumbled in the pocket of her faded blue apron. “Lookit here, mister! A ten-dollar gold piece!” She raised the gleaming coin. “No common saddlebum never gave no poor hard-workin’ old woman a present like that for coffee and beans. It was that fine Mr. Flood, never doubt. He was just passin’ through on his way up north.”

“What kind of horse was he ridin’, ma’am?”

“A big handsome paint. I tell you—he cut the finest figure of a man!”

Hennessey nodded. “Flood’s partial to paints.” He asked the woman, “Never said any special place up north he was headin’?”

“No. Say, who are you fellas, anyhow?”

“Rangers.”

“Rangers? Well you won’t get nothin’ outta me! Pesterin’ a body half to death with fool questions!” She went back in and slammed the door.

Hennessey pointed his bay north. “Let’s go, boy.”

Seven turned back for one last look at the shack and saw the old woman peering out after them through a cracked window. “She sure didn’t care for the Rangers.”

“They like ya best when they’re in trouble.”

“She seemed to’ve liked Flood.”

“Everybody does. ‘Till he kills ‘em.”

Aha. A wicked man that everyone likes. Until he kills them. Now that’s something us writers should prick our ears up at. I mean, baddies are supposed to be wicked and ruthless and money-hungry and psychos. But everybody likes Jim Flood.

Then Flood kills Hennessey and Seven catches Flood. He decides to take the outlaw back to Texas so they can “hang him.”

Texas is a long way from Utah.

Now, let’s listen to Flood talk about himself.

“One minute I wanted to kill everybody. The next minute I wanted to take the whole world into my arms and love it.

“Lots of wanted men claim somethin’ orrible happened to drive ‘em into always bein’ in trouble.” Flood shook his head. “Billy the Kid said he’d klled his first man defendin’ his mother’s honor. Billy was the biggest liar in New Mexico.

“Anyway, nothin’ happened to me except about a thousand little things that rubbed me the wrong way. Seemed like for every decent person I bumped into, there was a hundred towns full of cheap crooks, liars, braggarts, and bullies. And then one day the greatest idea I ever had come to me.”

Seven finished his coffee and put the cup down on the floor. “What?”

“To do exactly what I wanted for the rest of my life. We only get one apiece, you know.” Flood smiled at the fire. “I decided never to give a damn about what other people thought, or to give a damn about the law or anything else. If I wanted to raise hell, take some money, have a woman, kill a man—why, I’d just god-damn well right do it. Or if I want to help people, I’ll do it, though I find that don’t happen so often as the other things.”

Flood told Seven that he could take him any time he wanted, but wouldn’t because Hennessey had saved his life in the past, and Seven had been decent to Flood, even though he killed Hennessey. And so they go back to Texas, a kind of truce between them, and more than once, Flood gets them out of a tight place, and he keeps his word to Seven that he won’t take advantage of him.

Seven delivers Flood to Lieutenant Herly.

Seven says to his girl Joy, “Flood is—independence, and doing whatever you want to do, and being able to do whatever you want to do, wrapped up in one man.”

“Yet they’ll hang him.”

Seven thought on that. Then he said, “I don’t think so. If I’d really thought that, I doubt I coulda brought him in.”

Three days later Flood broke out. He shot the lieutenant who’d made captain, and Seven’s girl Joy got caught in the crossfire, not bad, but hit.

Flood knew he hit the girl, and he came back to see Seven.

Seven was on his way back to the door when the horse came to a halt in front of the building. Flood’s voice called out softly, “You there, Seven?”

“Yeah, I’m here.” Seven went out onto the dark ground beyond the door and could see Flood’s dim figure leaning toward him from where he sat his horse a few feet away.

“Heard the girl got hit. It was dark in the barn. I just shot at a sound I heard.”

“Thought it was something like that.”

“How is she?”

“Flood! I want you to know something.” Seven’s voice caught slightly with feeling, then continued firm as the man on horseback hesitated. “I want you to know that I think considerable of you, and think that you are about the best man I’ll ever know.”

Seven shotguns Flood in the end, and the end is worth reading the whole book. Jim Flood is a bad man you can like, and you, as a reader, are satisfied that he cannot be allowed to live. Problem with Flood was, he just didn’t give a damn . . . well, almost.

Clair Huffaker