Peacemaker Awards Deadline Approaching

The deadline for submissions for the Western Fictioneers Peacemaker Awards will soon be upon us. All print submissions must be postmarked no later than January 16. All electronic submissions must be received by the Awards Chair (me) by midnight CST on January 16. All the rules and pertinent information for the Peacemaker Awards can be found on the WF website.

Western Fictioneers Book Reviews

The Apprenticeship of Nigel Blackthorne 

by Frank Kelso

I found The Apprenticeship of Nigel Blackthorne a difficult read, bordering on boring with very little conflict, internal or external, and a lot of repetition. It was primarily a 'tell' book with almost no 'show', much like a memoir or diary. I also found the protagonist uninteresting and hard to like. 

It was also irritating that the author chose to use modern dialogue including contractions rather than the historically more correct  formal Victorian style prevalent in the west until after the Civil War.

The saving grace of the novel was the interesting facts of the coming of age of the protagonist when he lived with the Cheyenne, including the social mores and societal structure of the tribe...They referred to themselves as The People. The ascension and learning of tribal, survival, and battle skills of the young men earning their way into full warrior status was fascinating and the author should be commended on his research and knowledge. It earned the novel a four star rating from me instead of a three based on the story, character creation, and dialogue, in my opinion. 

It was well edited with very few typos and grammatical errors. 

—Ken Farmer - Author of The Nations Series

Lew Eden 1: Bugles and Blood

by Ben Bridges and Brent Towns

Lew Eden, an Indian scout for the US Army, wears the label of half-breed, being the son of a freedman and Seminole woman.  He lost both parents violently at an early age, and perhaps in some way it is their horrible and early deaths that contribute to his inbred sense of right from wrong. Unlike many flat western heroes, Eden’s character is round and dynamic.  Readers are always on the edge of their seat waiting to see HOW Eden will do the right thing.

I rarely read any book that describes battles in detail--be it the Civil War, the Indian wars, or World War II, but I did read the authors’ account of the Battles of the Rosebud and was fascinated with it.  The vivid imagery of the battles, the logistics of the troops, the strategies used by the Cavalry and the Indians, and the description of the dead and dying were riveting.

Immersed in this captivating story, I was disappointed to discover that the story did not reach a satisfactory conclusion. I suggest that this entire collection of Lew Edin be one, long novel instead of a series of short stories. This reader demands more of a good thing.

—Jesse J Elliot - Author of Death at Gran Quivera

River Whiskey By J. L. Guin  

In a fiery accident, Eli Jenkins believes he has murdered Morton Crenshaw, the father of the girl he loves. When his friend, Whit, suggests they leave for California now, Eli is ready to go. The two young men “borrow” clothing and gear from the dry goods store where Whit has worked for many years, and light out on the run. 

But their lives take a different turn when they become involved with seasoned traders, mountain men, Indians, and outlaws. Somewhere along the journey, the two tenderfoot greenhorns become men to be reckoned with—and, in their own right, respected. 

When they return to Independence for Eli to own up to killing Angela’s father, Fate steps in again and turns their lives around. Will Eli claim Angela Crenshaw for his bride? Or will Whit and Eli head back on the rough-and-tumble trail West to chase their dreams of selling RIVER WHISKEY?

Set in the early 1850’s, Whit and Eli are friends and after Eli thinks he’s killed the love of his life’s father in a knock-down, drag-out fight that ends in a fiery blaze, he figures the only option left open to him is to run. 

That’s what the two friends do. Run for California.

But to get there, they hire on with a trading outfit and that is just the beginning of their adventures.

J.L. Guin brings a broad cast of characters to life in this fantastic story of friendship and adventure. 

Traders, Indians, mountain men. They’re all there, some good and some bad. 

The friends are tested to their limits and in the process, somewhere along the line, they become men. And with it, Eli makes the decision that he will return and face the consequences of his actions, no matter what.

The story is a well written, exciting adventure, told in such a way you can see it all play out in your mind’s eye.

The pages seem to turn themselves as the reader blazes his own trail through them in search of what happens next.

This is my first book by Guin, and after the experience, I shall be looking for more by this author, for it was a great romp through the American West.  

—Brent Towns Author of Lightning Strike!

Do-Si-Do by Dorothy Bell

Gabe Buxton, a successful veterinarian in Portland, engaged to the very proper Edditha Millcan, receives a letter from his brother telling him to "get home before all hell breaks loose." He lets his plans slip to his fiancée, and she and her mother decide to accompany Gabe to Hoyt's Hot Spring, the source of everything Gabe has been trying to forget. And one of those things is Birdie-Alice Bollo, the pesky tag-along who has blossomed into a fiery woman who ignites Gabe's passions. Exactly what is about to break loose at the hot springs, and can Gabe help his father and brother get everything under control without losing his own? And what is his fiancee going to think when she meets Birdie-Alice, her exact opposite?

This is an enjoyable read, though the action falters somewhat in the middle before picking back up. There's a mysterious villain and suspicious happenings, a kidnapping and a show-down between the forces of good and evil. There's also a lot of romance and some sex, if you happen to like that sort of thing. Seems like there might be something in the waters of those hot springs, because even the snooty son of their wealthy neighbor is falling fo someone. 

I especially liked the characterization of the women in the story. Each of them has an individual personality and is spunky and capable. My favorite is the fiancee's mother, Adella, who has her own reasons for tagging along with her future son-in-law's homecoming.

Although I'd have liked to have the action and tension remain at a consistent high throughout the story, it still rates a solid 4 out of 5 for characterization and originality. If you like romance with a bit of mystery and action, try Do-Si-Do on for size.

—J.E.S. Hays Author of Devon Day and the Sweetwater Kid: Down the Owlhoot Trail

    

  

Applejack/Bat Masterson Trinidad’s Law by Charlie Steel

I loved this story, it read like a fairytale. I know that’s silly, because this is a gritty western and there is nothing fairytale about a true gritty western. Ah, but there is. If you look at this story from afar and place it back in the days of noble, brave, hard living knights.

Once upon a time, a highly principled pauper left his poor, squatty home in search of a better way. The pauper soon learns life is very hard when one is young and unused to the cruelty of others. Because he is a humanitarian at heart, he aids a severely wounded fellow traveler, a bandit of high renown. In turn for saving the bandits life, favor for favor, the bandit bestows upon the pauper a skill, a skill remarkably deadly and accurate. With the skill the bandit bestowed upon him, the pauper once again saves a life, this time the life of a famous knight, a powerful knight who maintains law and order in a small hamlet. The infamous knight makes of the highly principled and clean living pauper, his page. The Page proves himself over and over to the other knights and is made a knight, but maintains his principles and clean way of living, which the other knights deride as unnatural. The young knight is a reluctant knight in that killing sours his soul, and whenever possible he tries to avoid it, opting for wounding rather than death.

A kindly priest befriends the troubled young knight and sets out to broaden the young man’s mind. The young knight reveals to the priest his dream of becoming a land owner. He longs for the hand of a fair maid, but her cruel and ruthless father guards her well and forbids his approach.

The kindly priest, with ambitions of his own, and the infamous, powerful knight form an alliance, vowing to reward the young knight for his bravery and valor by seeing to it his dreams come true. They bestow upon the young knight a piece of property, a beautiful valley with plentiful water and crops to support it.

The opportunity to win the fair maid arrives when the maiden’s cruel, heartless father is taken by cattle thieves into the mountains. The fair maid rides to beg the young knight help her rescue her father from certain death and to retrieve the cattle. The infamous knight calls upon the other knights and they ride into a blizzard to save the ungrateful father. The young knight, singlehandedly saves the cruel father. Because the ungrateful, dastardly father owes the young knight for saving his life, he must relinquish the hand of his daughter to him. And we shall assume they live happily ever after or in relative peace and prosperity. The End.

I give this story a thumbs up. And I tip my hat to the author, delightful tale.

—Dorothy A. Bell Author of Dance Hall Road Do-si-do

    

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

KRIS KRINGLE'S TOY WAGON by JACK SORENSON

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! HOPE YOUR HOLIDAYS ARE MERRY AND BRIGHT!

SILVER MAGIC--A TIMELESS CHRISTMAS STORY by CHERYL PIERSON

I posted this several years ago, but it bears repeating in this hustle-and-bustle, disposable-goods world we've grown accustomed to. Let me share it with you again...

Several years ago, I had just sold my first short story to Adams Media's Rocking Chair Reader series. I was on Cloud 9! This story, SILVER MAGIC, was the 2nd story I sold to them and would appear in their first Christmas collection, Classic Christmas: True Stories of Holiday Cheer and Goodwill. I want to share it with you here. This story is true, and is one of the most poignant tales I could ever tell about my grandfather--he died when I was eleven. I never saw this side of him, and I don't think very many people did--that's what makes this Christmas story so special. I look forward to your comments!




SILVER MAGIC by Cheryl Pierson

Did you know that there is a proper way to hang tinsel on the Christmas tree?

Growing up in the small town of Seminole, Oklahoma, I was made aware of this from my earliest memories of Christmas. Being the youngest in our family, there was never a shortage of people always wanting to show me the right way to do—well, practically everything! When it came to hanging the metallic strands on the Christmas tree, my mother made it a holiday art form.

“The cardboard holder should be barely bent,” she said, “forming a kind of hook for the tinsel.” No more than three strands of the silver magic should be pulled from this hook at one time. And, we were cautioned, the strands should be draped over the boughs of the tree gently, so as to avoid damage to the fragile greenery.

Once the icicles had been carefully added to the already-lit-and-decorated tree, we would complete our “pine princess” with a can of spray snow. Never would we have considered hanging the icicles in blobs, as my mother called them, or tossing them haphazardly to land where they would on the upper, unreachable branches. Hanging them on the higher branches was my father’s job, since he was the tallest person I knew—as tall as Superman, for sure. He, too, could do anything—even put the serenely blinking golden star with the blonde angel on the very highest limb—without a ladder!

Once Christmas was over, I learned that there was also a right way to save the icicles before setting the tree out to the roadside for the garbage man. The cardboard holders were never thrown out. We kept them each year, tucked away with the rest of the re-useable Christmas decorations. Their shiny treasure lay untangled and protected within the corrugated Bekins Moving and Storage boxes that my mother had renamed “CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS” in bold letters with a black magic marker.

At the end of the Christmas season, I would help my sisters undress the tree and get it ready for its lonely curbside vigil. We would remove the glass balls, the plastic bells, and the homemade keepsake decorations we’d made in school. These were all gently placed in small boxes. The icicles came next, a chore we all detested.

We removed the silver tinsel and meticulously hung it back around the little cardboard hook. Those icicles were much heavier then, being made of real metal and not synthetic plastic. They were easier to handle and, if you were careful, didn’t snarl or tangle. It was a long, slow process—one that my young, impatient hands and mind dreaded.

For many years, I couldn’t understand why everyone—even my friends’ parents’—insisted on saving the tinsel from year to year. Then one night, in late December, while Mom and I gazed at the Christmas tree, I learned why.

As she began to tell the story of her first Christmas tree, her eyes looked back through time. She was a child in southeastern Oklahoma, during the dustbowl days of the Depression. She and her siblings had gotten the idea that they needed a Christmas tree. The trekked into the nearby woods, cut down an evergreen, and dragged it home. While my grandfather made a wooden stand for it, the rest of the family popped and strung corn for garland. The smaller children made decorations from paper and glue.

“What about a star?” one of the younger boys had asked.

My grandfather thought for a moment, then said, “I’ve got an old battery out there in the shed. I’ll cut one from that.”

The kids were tickled just to have the tree, but a star, too! It was almost too good to be true.

Grandfather went outside. He disappeared around the side of the old tool shed and didn’t return for a long time. Grandma glanced out the window a few times, wondering what was taking so long, but the children were occupied with stringing the popcorn and making paper chains. They were so excited that they hardly noticed when he came back inside.

Grandmother turned to him as he shut the door against the wintry blast of air. “What took you so long?” she asked. “I was beginning to get worried.”

Grandfather smiled apologetically, and held up the star he’d fashioned. “It took me awhile. I wanted it to be just right.” He slowly held up his other hand, and Grandmother clapped her hands over her mouth in wonder. Thin strands of silver magic cascaded in a shimmering waterfall from his loosely clenched fist. “It’s a kind of a gift, you know. For the kids.”

“I found some foil in the battery,” he explained. “It just didn’t seem right, not to have icicles.”

In our modern world of disposable commodities, can any of us imagine being so poor that we would recycle an old battery for the metal and foil, in order to hand-cut a shiny star and tinsel for our children’s Christmas tree?

A metal star and cut-foil tinsel—bits of Christmas joy, silver magic wrapped in a father’s love for his family.

This is a fantastic little anthology you might enjoy any time of year. If you'd like to read the wonderful stories in this collection, here's the link at Amazon. This is a true "bargain", but is only available from 3rd party sellers at this time as it is out of print.

AMAZON LINK: http://www.amazon.com/Classic-Christmas-Stories-Holiday-Goodwill/dp/B001QCX1NO/ref=la_B002JV8GUE_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416118651&sr=1-3


Have a wonderful Christmas and here's hoping 2018 will be a fantastic year for each and every one of us!

Let's Go To The Rodeo

Modern rodeo had its start with the Spanish ranchos in California. It's very difficult to trace the first rodeo in America. Many towns make this claim, including Santa Fe, New Mexico (1847), Deer Trail, Colorado (1869) and Pecos, Texas (1883). Much of what we know today as the sport of rodeo came from the Prescott, Arizona rodeo on July 4, 1888. Their committee established the following that still hold true today: prizes awarded, rules for competition, admission charged, cowboys invited to compete, and a committee to organize.

The events included bronco riding, steer roping and cow pony races. In 1889, the first steer riding competition was held, and by 1917, calf roping was added to the list of events.

Here are some of the events you will see at the rodeo:

Saddle bronc riding: Each rider must begin the ride with his feet over the horse's shoulders to give the animal an advantage. Scoring depends on the cowboy's control throughout the ride, the length of his spur sweeps, the synchronization of those sweeps with the bucking of the horse, and how hard the horse actually bucks. Riders are disqualified if they touch the animal, the equipment or themselves with their free hand; if either foot slips out of the stirrup; if they drop the bronc rein, or if they are bucked off.

Bareback bronc riding: Scoring is similar to saddle bronc riding, but the rider has only a leather and rawhide "rigging" to hold onto with one hand. The horse's performance counts fifty percent of the score in this event.

Bull riding: Bull riders usually don't spur the animals -- it's enough to remain atop an animal weighing several tons who is as quick as he is hefty! The rider usually tries to lean forward "over his head" at all times to avoid being whipped backwards when the animal bucks. Scoring is similar to bronc riding, with the bull's performance counting for fifty percent of the score.

Tie-down roping: Success in this event depends on teamwork between the cowboy and his horse. Once the calf is given a head start, horse and rider give chase and attempt to rope and tie the calf. A ten-second penalty is given if the cowboy "breaks the barrier" and fails to give the calf its full head start. The run is considered invalid if the calf kicks free of the rope within six seconds. Tie-down roping is a timed event, with scoring based on how long it takes to rope and tie the calf.

Steer wrestling (Bull-dogging): The steer wrestler starts on horseback, assisted by a mounted hazer who keeps the steer running in a straight line. The wrestler must leap down beside the steer and wrestle it to the ground by twisting its horns. The clock stops when the steer is on its side with all four legs pointing in the same direction. This is another timed event, with scoring depending on how quickly the cowboy can down his steer.

Team roping: The first cowboy (the header) ropes the steer's horns or neck (or "half head," which is one horn and the neck). He then dallies his rope around the saddle horn and turns the steer in an arc to the left. The second cowboy (the heeler) then attempts to lasso both hind legs. A ten-second penalty is given if only one leg is roped. Time is stopped when both horses are facing one another.

Barrel racing: Horse and race into the arena, with time starting as soon as they enter. They ride a cloverleaf pattern around three barrels in the arena and race back out, with time stopping at their exit. The riders can touch or move the barrels, but a five-second penalty is given for any barrel knocked over.

Now you and your characters can enjoy a good rip-snorting rodeo in the Old West.

J.E.S. Hays

www.jeshays.com

hays.jes@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/JESHaysBooks

The Story Behind the Unfinished Story

Writers have their own kind of jargon.

People who write without a formal outline on hand sometimes refer to themselves as “pantsers” as in “writing by the seat of the pants.” Or we say that we “write into the dark.”

This month you might hear your normally lucid and rational writer friend start babbling about “NaNoWriMo” —which stands for National Novel Writing Month, a time when some hunker down during the holidays to finally finish that WIP.

And there’s another one! (WIP is—of course—an acronym for Work in Progress.)

The piece of jargon I’ve been thinking about today is “Trunk Story.” How many of you reading this have a trunk story you could dredge up, probably within a few minutes? How many of you have more than one?

Here’s another question. Should a Trunk Story be complete?

Is it a finished work, but put away in the trunk—nowadays usually an electronic trunk—because it didn’t find a home or was deemed unworthy?

Or, like old scraps stashed away in a quilter’s horde, is a lot of the material in your trunk in pieces?

Three years ago, I started on one such scrap, a story called “If Stars Hate Wire.”

It started off well enough. It ended without an ending. Or and ending that left me thinking...what next?

Tuck O’Brian and Ron Bruce are two cowboys in 1903 Nebraska, working on the Graham-Jessom spread. Like a lot of ranch hands at the time, they’re forced to deal with a changing landscape. The Kinkaiders are coming, and these new settlers (often called “nesters”) seem to be getting all the breaks.

And all the sympathy.

I had two reasons I wanted to explore Tuck and Ron’s story. One was to take a look at the traditional rancher vs. farmer conflict from the POV of a typical cowboy of the times. I also wanted to write about the general development of the Nebraska Sandhills.

I got a few pages in, enjoyed what I had written.

And just stopped.

Sometimes we stop because we can’t see light at the end of the tunnel.

Sometimes we’re just not happy with what we’ve done. We don’t like the characters. Or maybe the setting seems wrong.

In this case, I stopped because I realized early on that this was going to be longer than a few thousand words. The scope of the story was more than I was comfortable committing to in the few days I had to write.

Now that it's back out in the open...I'm not so sure.  Please give it a read and tell me what you would do. Would you wrap it up, or continue? Or put it back in the trunk?

Please share some comments, and your own Trunk Story stories below.

You can read the unfinished story “If the Stars Hate Wire,” here.


After growing up on a Nebraska farm, Richard Prosch worked as a professional writer, artist, and teacher in Wyoming, South Carolina, and Missouri. His western crime fiction captures the fleeting history and lonely frontier stories of his youth where characters aren’t always what they seem, and the windburned landscapes are filled with swift, deadly danger. In 2016, Richard roped the Spur Award for short fiction given by Western Writers of America. Read more at www.RichardProsch.com