I SEE BY YOUR OUTFIT… By Marc Cameron

I'm down on the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska taking a sailing course. Crummy internet so I can't get photos to load.  I'm not a hundred percent sure this will work--but we'll give it a try... 

I’ve established in previous essays that early days in the lawman profession can be pretty lean, often requiring another job on the side. For a time, my wife and I managed a ranch in exchange for rent.

Always rushed for time, I’d get home from my deputy marshal work and shuck my coat, tie and pistol like Clark Kent running for a phone booth so I could change into a pair of jeans, chaps and a brush-popper shirt. I kept a pair of boots beside the door. They were tall things, Tony Lama buckaroos with spurs I left on the heel shelf and plenty of caked manure on the sole. The light was always fading by the time I saddled my horse and rode out to check the cow-calf pairs in the back pasture. 

One cold and windy Halloween, I heard a knock at the front door about the time I tied on my wild rag scarf—no bandana for me, no sir—and snugged down the stampede string on my silver belly Resistol. I pulled open the door to find a lady from church who was dropping by to pick up my wife and kids for a carnival.

“Oh,” she said, eyeing me from boot to hat. “You’re dressing up as a cowboy.”

“No, ma’am,” I said. “I’m just going to feed the cows.”

My wife just chuckled that her friend thought I was wearing a costume as she herded our pirate, princess, and Lion King out the door. If memory serves, my bride was a gypsy, or maybe a belly dancer. It was pretty much the same costume but I was partial to the version with more bangles and less silk.  

I’ve never really been much on Halloween—except for the that belly dancer costume. 

I once thought I’d like to try my hand at writing a screenplay—but then I found out how sparse that sort of writing was. I prefer the novel, where I can be director, cinematographer, set designer and costumer. What a character wears goes a long way toward defining him or her. Think Clint Eastwood’s serape, James Bond’s iconic tuxedo, Indiana Jones’s battered fedora or the unblocked crown of Captain Woodrow Call’s hat. Ann Bancroft’s leopard-skin coat and undies in The Graduate sure say something about Mrs. Robinson’s character.  The character of Sandy in GREASE goes from virginal poodle skirts to skintight black leather by the end of the play/movie. When we see a certain style of clothing, we expect a personality to go along with it.

I have a good friend who worked as an undercover drug agent in Texas nearly three decades ago. As part of his persona he shaved his head and had a makeup artist give him full-sleeve tattoos as well as a couple on his neck and face. This was before body art had inched a little more main stream. It so happened that he was buying a house in the small town where we’d grown up. From his internal point of view, he was the same sweet-hearted copper with a wife and two little girls who liked soccer and good barbecue. He was talking to the realtor in front of his new home when an elderly neighbor walked up and threatened to burn the house to the ground before he watched outlaw bikers to move next door.

I noticed early in my law enforcement career that the public reacted pretty consistently to the way responding officers were dressed—particularly our hats.

As a patrol officer I was issued a round uniform hat like the ones Reed and Malloy wore in Adam 12. We hated those hats. When I went into mounted patrol my uniform was the same grey shirt but added starched black Wranglers and highly polished boots with chrome spurs. We wore a black felt Resistol hat in the winter and a white straw in the summer.  On our horses we felt ten feet tall and bullet proof.  When the weather was too bad to ride we wore the same uniform, responding in our patrol truck instead of on horseback. No matter how many responding officers outranked us at any call, citizens always turned to us as soon as we arrived. The guys in the big hats had to be the ones in charge—even absent our mounts.

            If I’ve done things right in my books, readers would recognize Jericho Quinn by his armored black motorcycle jacket—and in TIME OF ATTACK, Ayako Shimizu’s outfits directly illustrate her character. Here are two short descriptions— one shortly after Quinn first meets her and another, later after she has developed feelings for Quinn.  

--The short skirt, white blouse and knee socks were meant to replicate the look of a Japanese schoolgirl—a popular fantasy for Japanese men who hired prostitutes. Quinn couldn’t help but notice that the socks were a little too large for her tiny feet and the heels hung out of the back of her slippers. She was still able to carry off the costume, but Quinn could make out the tiniest of lines around her smallish mouth. Wide, chocolate eyes, though attractive in their own way, held a weary look that liner and makeup could not hide.—

And later--

---“I got mintaiko,” she said. “Spiced cod roe. We are known for it here in Fukuoka.”

“Sounds delicious.” Quinn couldn’t help but smile as he watched Ayako putter around the simple wooden counter that served as a kitchen in the small cottage. Her hair still hung in damp locks from her shopping trip in the morning rain. She’d slipped off her wet sweat pants and jacket to reveal a pink Hello Kitty t-shirt and loose violet gym shorts that matched the slippers she’d brought in the duffle from her apartment.

The softness of the colors reminded Quinn of an Easter egg. He wondered if she realized that though she worked each day to make herself alluring with costumes and makeup, it was now, fresh from the rain and dressed in plain t-shirt and shorts that her natural beauty shown through.

Perhaps, Quinn thought, she knew exactly what she was doing, and had expertly dialed in on what Quinn found attractive.—

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's published ten novels, six of them Westerns.   

TIME OF ATTACK, fourth in his USA Today Bestselling Jericho Quinn Thriller series, is the newest release from Kensington February of 2014. 

Marc lives in Alaska with his beautiful bride and BMW motorcycle.

Visit him at:

www.marccameronbooks.com 

http://www.facebook.com/MarcCameronAuthor

Hurdy Gurdy Girls #western #history @JacquieRogers

Hurdy Gurdy Girls

by Jacquie Rogers
Website | Pickle Barrel Gazette

When a man puts in over sixty hours of backbreaking labor in the mines, or punches cattle from dawn to dark every day, by the end of the week he's ready for a little entertainment. In the American West, that entertainment was provided primarily by saloons and dance halls. With the man to woman ratio of 20:1 or even worse, sometimes much worse, seeing a pretty lady was the delight of a man's week. And he spent a lot of money for the privilege. Enter: the hurdy gurdy girls.

Hurdy gurdy girls were distributed all over Europe, Australia, and North America, but this article addresses only the girls who came to the American West, including Canada, USA, and territories. What's a hurdy gurdy? (Find out at Chris Eaton's website) Why were they called hurdy gurdy girls, and how did this all come about? The best site to answer this is The Universe of Bagpipes.

To supplement their incomes, in the 1820s farmers and farmworkers began to make wooden brooms and fly-whisks during the winter which they, as itinerant peddlers, sold in the summers in the surrounding areas... It was soon discovered that the wares sold better when accompanied by dancing, hurdy-gurdy playing girls. Quickly the dancing and music became ever more important and the pretty girls became ever better known...there was a lot of easy money to be made.

Hurdy gurdy girls could be found all over the West. Generally, prostitution was not involved. The girls, from poverty-stricken families in the duchies of Germany, were of strong moral fiber. They danced with men, and cajoled them to spend money on drinks, but services beyond that were taken care of by other women.

In 1913 Idaho Governor William McConnell wrote in his book Early History of Idaho:

The girls were engaged by the proprietors of the 'social resorts,' in sets of four, with a chaperone who accompanied them at all times. They were almost invariably German girls, and although they were brought into contact with rough people and sometimes witnessed even the shedding of human blood, the rude, generous chivalry of the mountain men, some of whom were always found in these resorts, was a guarantee of protection from violence, and strange as it may sound to those of modern times, these girls were pure women, who simply did the work they had bargained to do, and when their contracts expired, most of them married men whose acquaintance they had made while pursuing their vocation, the men who knew them best, and with the money they had earned by dancing with 'Wild Bill,' 'Texas Pete,' and others, helped to buy a house for themselves and husbands. The poor girls, and they danced only because they were poor, had kind hearts and wonderful patience and forbearance.

Some hurdy gurdy girls came over in family groups. Arthur Hart, Director Emeritus for the Idaho Historical Society, cited some census data in his article for the Idaho Statesman, Idaho History: Hurdy-Gurdy girls on frontier danced with all comers. Notice that this troop is called a "Hurdie Gurdie Troop" but it appears they only play violins.

The 1870 census is enlightening. In Granite Creek, Boise Basin, with its post office in Placerville, a "Hurdie Gurdie Troop" is listed as made up of Conrad Schneider, 43, his wife, Catherine, 35, and children ages 15, 11 and 2. Conrad was a violinist, as was his brother, George, 37, whose wife, Mary, was 34. A third violinist in the troop was Conrad Deihl, 19. Four dancing girls ranged in age from 15 to 27. All were from the Rhineland area of Germany.

There were two kinds of women in the Old West: good (meaning strong moral fiber) and bad (meaning sexually promiscuous). Hurdy gurdy girls were considered "good women" by men, but usually not by "respectable" ladies, the schoolmarms, and bankers' wives of the town. Because the dance hall owners had to make sure the girls were safe, hall patrons were expected to follow rules such as these posted at the Alhambra, a dance hall in Silverton, Colorado:

Rule 1. No lady will leave the house during evening working hours without permission.
Rule 2. No lady will accompany a gentleman to his lodgings.
Rule 3. No kicking at the orchestra, especially from the stage.
Rule 4. Every lady will be required to dance on the floor after the show.
Rule 5. No fighting or quarrelling will be allowed

The ladies to the left are hurdy gurdy girls in Barksville (I think), British Columbia, Canada. They danced as many as fifty dances a night, at a doller per dance.

Later in the 19th Century, hurdy gurdy girls didn't just dance, but then they weren't from the Rhineland, either. The name became synonymous with soiled dove, and the girls' origins were not limited to a small area of Germany. However the original hurdy gurdy girls in the American West often found husbands and made good homes for themselves and their new families.

Sources: The Universe of Bagpipes
Arthur Hart: IdahoStatesman.com
bcheritage.ca

♥ Hearts of Owyhee ♥

Much Ado About Marshals

Much Ado About Madams

Much Ado About Mavericks

Much Ado About Miners

THOSE THRILLING DAYS OF YESTERYEAR . . . By Tom Rizzo

Every morning before dawn, I strap on an arm band that holds my iPod, slip on a pair of wireless earbuds, and head to the streets to walk for an hour or so. 

 

But, I'm not listening to music. On my iPod are more than 1,500 Podcasts--mostly old radio shows of every genre you can imagine. Many of the Podcasts are old time radio Westerns. These programs are great sources of entertainment. Not only do they help pass the time on my walks, they keep me connected to a past that required listeners to make full use of their imaginations.

The actors were outstanding. Sound effects functioned as effective imagery, appealing to a range of human senses that helped deepen the audience's understanding of story.

One moment, you may hear dialog exchanged with the sound of a babbling mountain stream in the background. Or, the dramatic sound of gunshots exchanged in a fierce battle between the good and the bad guys.

Sometimes, all that was needed to set the stage for the right amount of tension or suspense was the sound of a character's breathing.

There were other sounds too. Doors being opened and closed. Coffee or liquor being poured. Horses galloping across the radio dial. The crackle and pop of a campfire. A dog barking. Maybe a baby crying. Based on dialog, sound effects, and scene-setting musical scores, listeners were able to add their own splashes of color and strokes of reality across a canvas of the imagination.

I didn't realize how many different Westerns were available back when radio was king. Among them:

    •    Gunsmoke  

    •    Have Gun Will Travel
    •    Frontier Gentleman
    •    The Lone Ranger
    •    Fort Laramie
    •    The Roy Rogers Show
    •    The Six-Shooter
    •    Death Valley Days
    •    Maverick
    •    Hopalong Cassidy
    •    The Cisco Kid
    •    Red Ryder
    •   . . . and many, many more.

In the Fifties, the western improved its entertainment value when writers created more complex story lines, laced with psychological motivations for the protagonist and antagonist. 

 

Dubbed adult westerns, these radio dramas were often referred to as "the thinking man's western"--the antithesis the traditional shoot-em-up style of western.  

The actors, of course, were key to the success of these mostly 30-minute productions. If you listened to a lot of radio, you'd eventually hear the same voices on multiple productions. But, you had to pay attention. Most of these men and women were skillful enough to alter their voices so they matched the theme or genre of a particular program. 

For this month ... a snapshot look at three of the most skillful radio professionals.

• WILLIAM CONRAD starred in Gunsmoke, which took place in Dodge City in the mid-1880s. 

The program is considered by many the greatest radio drama ever primarily because of its authenticity, thanks to superb acting and creative sound effects.

It is difficult to imagine anyone else but Conrad playing radio's Marshal Matt Dillon. Thanks to his deep, resonant voice and veteran acting skills, he brought an unparalleled believability to the part. 

Before taking the role, he was already a prolific radio actor. In fact, he almost didn't land the role because of his extensive exposure on other radio shows.

Conrad narrated the radio drama anthology, Escape, on which all the Gunsmoke regulars happened to work. He also served as narrator for the TV shows, The Fugitive, The Invaders, Tales of the Unexpected, Rocky and his Friends, and The Wild World of Animals. In all, he worked in more than  7,500 radio productions.

When producers turned to James Arness to play Dillon on the TV series, it deeply upset Conrad. But, his short and heavy physical stature worked against him for what producers had in mind for the TV version.

Before taking on the role of Matt Dillon, Conrad made his motion picture debut in the 1947 film, The Killers.

Conrad eventually made it to theTV screen. He played the featured role in Nero Wolfe, as well as the district attorney lead in Jake and the Fat Man. Conrad also starred as detective Frank Cannon in Cannon. After it was cancelled, he remarked, "Cannon was crap. I was delighted to see it canceled."

And, Conrad once served as the voice of The Long Ranger on Saturday morning cartoons.

• JOHN DEHNER starred in two radio Westerns: Have Gun Will Travel and Frontier Gentleman. 

Have Gun Will Travel opened September 1957 on television first--one of the few such instances. The radio show debuted more than a year later in November 1958. 

HGWT featured a gun-for-hire by the name of Paladin who tried to resolve any assignments he accepted in a peaceful way, preferably without violence.

Frontier Gentleman revolved around a character named JB Kendall, a disgraced British Army officer on personal exile in the West. The show lasted only one season, a victim of television's growing influence.

Dehner, before hitting the airwaves, worked a variety of jobs. They included WWII army publicist, disc jockey, pianist, and animator. He once worked for Disney as an Assistant Animator. In fact, he drew the owl sequences in Bambi, and the Beethoven sequence in Fantasia.

He certainly ranks as among the best radio actors. But, based on his background and accomplishments, Dehner had the talent and commitment to be the best at whatever career he chose.
After leaving Disney, he joined the Army where the military made full use of his language and media skills in a public relations capacity. 

After the service, he went into radio as an announcer, news reporter, and news editor in California. Dehner, in fact, won a Peabody Award for his coverage of the first United Nations Conference.

But he followed his heart into acting and, along the way, appeared as a cast member in nearly every network prime-time hit. His versatile voice and acting skills kept him among the busiest radio performers in the industry.

Dehner played characters in a number of radio westerns as well as old time radio shows such as Suspense, Johnny Dollar, Phillip Marlowe, Let George Do It and Rogers of the Gazette.

• BRACE BEEMER first became associated with The Lone Ranger as an announcer. 

But after the accidental death of Earle Graser in 1941, Beemer assumed the role of the masked legend of the Plains. 

Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear . .  .

The program, which debuted on WXYZ radio in Detroit, ran for hundreds of episodes between January 1931 and September 1954. 

George Senius/Seaton held the role for five months in 1931, Graser between 1933 and 1941, and Beemer from 1941 to 1954.

He got his first radio job in 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana, and happened to be the first ever radio personality to broadcast the Indy 500.

Beemer lent a booming voice to the part of the Lone Ranger. He stood six-feet-three, and personified the values and ideals that producer George W. Trendle and writer Fran Striker wanted to communicate through a character who played hardball with the lawless, but demonstrated understanding and kindness towards the law-abiding.

Beemer's size worked for and against him in one instance. Larger than most young men of his age, he managed to enlist in the Army and serve with the America Expeditionary Forces during World War I. He got wounded in combat, sent home, and discharged when officials discovered he was only 14.

Since Beemer played the role longer than anyone else, he's the most famous of the Lone Ranger actors. In fact, his voice was so closely associated with the role that Clayton Moore - who played the masked man on TV, imitated Beemer's speech patterns in the early episodes of the TV series.

Listening to these old, and sometimes scratchy, radio shows helps release the neurons of nostalgia. 

I remain amazed at the production quality of some of these old Westerns and other programs. Not only the acting, but the skill in blending sound effects that provided for a much richer listening experience.

But, the real truth is that it's still so darn much fun to listen. 

An Internet search will reveal countless sources from which to download recordings of these shows. Here are three different sites to start, if you're so inclined. 

• Gunsmoke
• Have Gun Will Travel
• Frontier Gentleman
• The Lone Ranger

# # # 

DRIFTING ALONG...By Vonn McKee

Brian Goodman photo

What would a wild west movie be without ‘em? Or even The Big Lebowski? They add just the right touch of desert desolation to a sound stage ghost town. Iconic lonely wanderers skittering across the screen…such a perfect metaphor for the drifting cowboy, ever restless and never tarrying long.

They’ve been immortalized in song. “See them tumbling down, pledging their love to the ground…” A strange lyrical image, if you ask me but, hey…whatever rhymes, right?

We know and love them (or not) as tumbleweeds. The botanical name is Salsola Tragus, or Russian thistle. Many a disgruntled farmer would smugly opine no surprise that the Russians might be behind this nefarious fence-clogging, crop-invading weed.

Disgruntled farmer

As you might guess from the name, Russian thistle is, indeed, not from around here. It sneaked over in bags of flax seed brought to South Dakota by immigrants in the early 1870’s. There was a conspiracy among the local farmers that the Russian immigrants, many of whom were Mennonites, had the noxious plant shipped over to protest frontier prejudices against them. The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture conducted an investigation and everything. Eventually, it was ruled a horrible accident rather than an act of botanical warfare.

Conditions in the arid and open plains proved to be perfectly conducive to total tumbleweed domination. As the plant matures, it breaks off at the main stem and hitches a ride on the wind, dropping as many as a quarter million seeds on its journey. (Yes, that’s from ONE tumbleweed.) The seeds are not picky about things like soil pH, minimum rainfall or hardiness zones so it isn’t long before the seedling goes from this innocent little tyke:

to this unassuming shrub:

to this!

National Geographic photo

Here is a map of Russian thistle distribution in the United States. It does not reflect the degree of invasion, only the presence of Russian thistle variants. While the wild weeds still prefer the Wild West, as you can see, about the only places you won’t find some version of these ornery thistles (they love to merge with other subspecies) are in the Everglades and the Great Lakes.

Tumblin’ tumbleweeds can easily take paint off a car, thanks to their spiny branches, and can self-stick into huge piles, creating fire hazards and navigational bothers. In January of this year, the citizens of Clovis, New Mexico, awoke to find themselves buried in tumbleweed drifts. It took the city weeks to dig out of the mess.

CNN image

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has tried many Russian thistle “management” measures to no avail. The current research is centered around various weevils, caterpillars and tiny insects called “blister mites,” which feed specifially on the thistle. (Just a little word to the D of A here: Y’all might want to be careful about introducing something called BLISTER MITES into an already bad situation.)

herbguide.com image

Since you are all probably humming "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" by now, here are some interesting links. For the purists, The Sons of the Pioneers with classic western harmony:

The Sons of the Pioneers (Young Leonard Slye in front)
Bob Nolan photo collection

CLICK HERE: Sons of the Pioneers

As a wild card bonus, here are the Supremes with their Motown version. (What? You don't own The Supremes Sing Country, Western and Pop?)

Joel Francis image

CLICK HERE: Supremes

Until next time, lonely but free I’ll be found, drifting along with the Salsola Tragus…

                  All the best, VM

NEW FROM WESTERN TRAIL BLAZER! 
THE GUNFIGHTER'S GIFT BY VONN McKEE
"Pap rides in on Wilhelmina's birthday, giving her a mysterious blue box and maybe even his 'gift' with a gun..."

Available on Amazon here!

Lace Your Tree Up

Part 2: I-Z

What would the Old West be without a discussion of the typical mode of travel: horseback riding? Anybody who could afford one owned at least one horse, and many working folks kept several. A cowboy had a whole string of mounts that he used for different jobs. So lace your tree up (tie on your saddle) and get aboard – today we’re going riding.

Iron out, Kick the frost out, Ride the kinks out, Smooth out the humps: to ride a troublesome horse until it stops bucking and gets down to business

Jack-knife: the action of a wildly-pitching horse in the middle of a jump

Jigger: to over-run or over-heat a horse

Jiggle: the normal gait of a cowpony

Kettle: to pitch and buck

Kick the lid off: to break into violent bucking

Kinks: what’s found in the backbone of a cowpony when first mounted, causing it to buck

Let out: to kick

Light rider: one who sits lightly in the saddle and so does not need to adjust the cinch ring often, or chafe the horse’s back with the saddle

Mounting: Westerners mount a horse from the left side or “near” side; the “Indian side” (right or “off” side) is “wrong.”

Pitcher: a horse given to bucking

Pussy-backing: a gentle kind of bucking with an arched back

Riding slick: riding a bucking horse without a bucking roll, locked spurs, or other “cheaters”

Roughing out: the first riding of a bronc

Single-foot, rack: a gait halfway between a trot and a canter

Spanish trot: an easy, swinging trot

Spike your horse’s tail: to bring a horse to such a sudden stop that it practically sits down

Spinner: a horse given to bucking in tight circles

Stargazer: not said kindly; a horse that keeps its head high in the air, the result of the trainer being rough with the bit

Sunfish: a dangerous jumping twist with first one side toward the ground and then the other; called sunning his belly, sunning his sides – the horse is a sunfisher

Swallow his head: the horse puts its head down between its legs when bucking

Throw-back: the horse throws itself over backwards to try to crush the rider

Thrown: Here are some of the colorful euphemisms for becoming separated from your horse – dirty your shirt, eaten dirt without stooping, chased a cloud, chewed/eaten/tasted gravel, gone forked-end up, gone grass hunting, gone picking daisies, gone up to fork a cloud, gotten busted, gotten dumped, gotten dusted, gotten flung away, gotten grassed, gotten piled, gotten spilled, gotten spread-eagled, kissed the ground, landed on your sombrero, lost your hat and gotten off to get it, lost your horse, met your shadow on the ground, picked daisies, sunned your moccasins, taken a squatter’s rights, taken up a homestead

Untrack a horse: to lead a horse forward a few steps before mounting. If the horse is in a mood to act up, it will show it at this time. No old timer ever mounts a horse without untracking it.

Walking-beaming: bucking so that first the front feet and then the hind feet are in the air

Sources:

A Dictionary of the Old West, Peter Watts, 1977

Dictionary of the American West, Win Blevins, 1993

J.E.S. Hays

www.jeshays.com

hays.jes@gmail.com

Ranger Jim's Ramblings for June

Reflections from a Peacemaker Judge

Okay, the winners of the WF Peacemaker Awards have been announced. First, my sincere congratulations to the winners, as well as the finalists. It was a privilege to be one of the judges, and to have the opportunity to read some fine work.

I came away with a few thoughts and pointers after my reading. Some of these involve submissions that were finalists for the awards, others in submissions that didn't quite make the cut. I offer these in the spirit of helping make good books even better, and as reminders that all of us, as authors, could always use. I've been a victim of all the examples below, so please don't think I'm picking on anyone. Like all of us, I've made my share of mistakes. With luck this will help some of us prevent a few.

And, of course, in the case of books up for an award, where the scoring is close, sometimes a simple error can knock a submission  out of contention, or drop it from "Best" to "Finalist". So one last check before approving the final manuscript is always advisable. As I stated, even with the examples I'm giving some of the submissions still were fine enough to be finalists for a Peacemaker.

First, typos, typos, typos. Yes, typos are going to happen, and they're pretty much inevitable, no matter how good your proofreaders and/or editors are. However, there are quite often typos that shouldn't be missed, or are so glaring they make the reader cringe. One submission had a livery stable owner feeding the main character's horse "oaks". The first picture that comes to mind is a really huge feed bin. The second is the poor horse, totally confused as to why he is being fed trees. The word was obviously supposed to be "oats".  All right, it's only one letter, and it was good for a laugh. But in the same book the author writes about the U.S. CALVARY! Wrong, wrong, wrong! That's a basic error, and unfortunately an oft-repeated one, that makes the reader grind his or her teeth and want to scream. It's the CAVALRY. Calvary is where Jesus Christ was crucified, Cavalry is mounted soldiers. That's one typo which should never be missed.

Second, and this is one that's tripped me up, and I'm sure most of us, make certain any words, expressions, or things used or described in your book were actually in use during the time when the story is set. For example, I wrote several novels before I found out that " blue jeans" or "jeans" were not  terms in use during the time of the old West to describe denim trousers. There are lots of terms we assume were always around that weren't. But, there are some that even the slightest bit of care would keep from appearing in a Western. One submission had a character "ripped off" and also described a saloon mob as "going ballistic".   There's no way those should ever have shown up in a Western.

Finally, before writing a six or seven hundred page novel, seriously consider whether your story might be better served by being broken up into two or more volumes. Quite often, a long manuscript tries to get too much into one story, or tends to ramble all over the place, getting bogged down in details. And many of today's readers don't have the time or inclination to sit down with a long novel.  Better to have two short, concise stories than one long, rambling one. A shorter story can lead the reader to want to read more of an author's work, while a too long one can turn the reader off from an author permanently.

So, just a few thoughts for your consideration. Again, congratulations to all the finalists, and if your book didn't appear on the list this year I hope you'll try again for 2015. I'm looking forward to once again judging a whole passel of fine Westerns.

Wicked Work in Progress

Me ca.1957

The title of the first chapter of my WIP—Stryker’s Posse—is: The Sack of Silverton.

(I’m going to put a title on each chapter in this book to see if there’s any difference, of any kind.)

Here’s how the wicked Shadow Box Gang shows up.

. . . the Shadow Box Gang chose Jesse Clark’s place on Bullion Road where all seven men tied their horses to the hitching rail with slipknots that would come free at a jerk if they had to beat it out of town. That was not Cahill Bowman’s intention. He came to make Walt Nation wish he’d never been born.

Some information about Jesse Clark’s place, and then:

Bowman stepped through the front door and walked three steps toward the bar. Six Shadow Box men followed and spread out against the wall back of Bowman, who drew his six-gun and shot the two men at the bar. “Don’t reach for the sawed-off,” he said to the bartender. “Instead, you might want to bring me Elly Nation. You do that and you just might live.”

Flapjack Kranz and Big Ed Grainer went into the restaurant before the family could collect their senses and leave. Flapjack waved a converted Colt Navy at them. “Just set right there and you might live to tell the tale. Try and be brave and you sure as hell won’t live.”

The family froze. “We’re just passing through,” the man said. “Please don’t mix us up in local problems.”

Flapjack laughed. “You’re plenty mixed up, you surely are.” He raised his voice. “Maggie Brown. You in there?”

A matronly woman hesitantly put her head out the door leading to the kitchen. “Yes?”

“You Maggie Brown?”

She nodded.

“Come on in and sit down with the mister and missus and their tit suckers.”

“I’ve got dishes to wash,” she said. “Ain’t no one else here.”

“I reckon you’re a liar, Maggie Brown. Where’s the Frenchy cook?”

Maggie’s eyes went wide. She sputtered. “F…f…frenchy c…c…cook. Umm, we don’t have one of those. Besides, Gerard, our regular cook, has gone out to choose vegetables for the supper meal.”

“Well then, Maggie m’dear, just come on in and sit down with your customers.” Flapjack waved his big Navy Colt toward the family. Maggie marched across the room and sat herself down in a chair not far from them.

Flapjack Kranz raised his voice. “All clear in here, Bow. Mommie and Daddy and two tit-suckin’ kids, plus Maggie Brown. Ain’t no one else in here.”

“Good,” Bowman said. “Rastus?”

“Yo.”

“You and Geebee grab them dead ones and dump ‘em in the street, couldja?”

“Gotcha, boss.”

Rastus Smythe and G. B. “Geebee” Mills each dragged a dead drinker from the bar at Jesse Clark’s place and rolled them off the porch to lie in a jumbled heap at the foot of the steps leading up to it.

The bartender ran for Elly Nation. When he got back with her:

When he got to the steps leading to the porch, he sidestepped the bodies in the road and quick timed up and into Jesse Clark’s. He burst through the door and put Elly on the floor. “Here’s Walt Nation’s kid,” he said, and Cahill Bowman shot him between the eyes.

“Get him outta here, Rastus, Geebee,” Bowman said. “Dump him on the others.”

Rastus and GeeBee took an arm and a leg each, hauled Phil Stone out the door and tossed him atop the two dead drinkers.

Bowman grinned at Elly Nation, who stood like a stone, shock showing in her wide-eyed stare. “Thank you for coming to see us, Elly. You’re just what we needed right now. Would you like some sarsaparilla?”

Elly shook her head.

“All right then, if you’d please come with me into Jesse’s restaurant, we’ll get you a comfortable place to sit and wait.” Bowman held out his hand. “Come along now.”

“My daddy’s the sheriff, mister,” Elly said in a tiny voice.

Bowman’s grin turned into a wicker smile. “Yes, he is, Elly. Yes, he is. And I’m quire sure we’ll see him come in here before long. Now, let’s go and find you a place to sit.” Bowman reached for Elly’s hand, but she put her hands behind her back.

“Don’t be silly, girl. Come along.”

With no alternative, Elly followed Bowman into the restaurant.

Unlike some of the other wicked people we’ve talked about on Wednesdays, Cahill Bowman truly is wicked.

A family in the restaurant comes afoul of Cahill Bowman, too. Like this:

Flapjack tossed the money belt where Bowman said to.

“Pull your pants up, man,” Bowman said.

The man did as he was told, his hands shaking. He had to hold his waistband as the suspenders no longer worked. “That’s all we have, mister,” the man said, tears forming in his eyes. “We are going to Arizona to make a new start.”

In my mind, Bruce Dern is Cahil Bowman

“Life ain’t fair,” Bowman said. “Now, all of you, get in here.” He hooked his head toward the doorway of the barroom. “Now!”

The man and his wife went past Bowman on their way into the barroom. The son and daughter followed. The boy stopped to stare up at Bowman. “You’re mean, mister,” he said. “Really mean.”

Then he uses Elly Nation to get her father, the Sheriff, to come to Jesse Clark’s place. Like this:

Bowman grinned. “You just stay ready, Flapjack. I think Maggie realizes the boy’s life is in her hands. Now. Maggie darlin’. Are you ready?”

“Let the boy go,” she said. “You can have me for whatever, but let the boy go.”

“Good. We’ll think about the boy.” Bowman came over to stand by Maggie. “You go on out there, Maggie. You go on out there and tell everybody who’s wondering what’s going on in here. You tell them who’s in here and how they’re going to die unless the people out there do what I say.”

Maggie nodded.

“And you tell them, Maggie, you tell them the Shadow Box Gang wants the gold in the McQueen bullion room. Silver ain’t worth carrying, but gold. Now gold is something else. You tell Walt Nation that he’s to bring the gold himself if he ever wants to see little Elly again . . . alive, that is.”

Maggie nodded again. “I’ll tell them,” she said.

“And you come back when you’re finished, Maggie. You come back or the kid’s dead. Got that?”

“Yes,” she said in a tiny voice.

“What? Cain’t hear you, Maggie.”

“Yes!”

Bowman showed his wicked smile again. “Good. Good. You just go on out there. Make sure Walt Nation comes in here. And make sure he’s carrying that gold.”

I’m not going to give you any more, but I’m sure you can imagine how Matt Stryker will have trouble bringing the Shadow Box Gang to justice. The book, Stryker’s Posse, will be out from Piccadilly Publishing in the early fall.

Monty McCord now in ebook form.