“Wild painted Red Indians from America, on their wild bare backed horses, of different tribes—cowboys, Mexicans &c., all came tearing around at full speed, shrieking and screaming, which had the weirdest effect. An attack on a coach & on a ranch, with an immense deal of firing, was most exciting, so was the buffalo hunt & the bucking ponies. . . .The cowboys are fine looking people, but the painted Indians, with their feathers and wild dress (very little of it) were rather alarming looking & they have cruel faces. . . .Col. Cody, ‘Buffalo Bill’ as he is called, from having killed 3000 buffaloes, with his own hand, is a splendid man, handsome and gentlemanlike in manner. He has had many encounters & hand to hand fights with the Red Indians. Their war dances, to a wild drum and pipe, was quite fearful, with all their contorsions [sic] and shrieks, & they come so close.” Queen Victoria describing the thrill of seeing the Wild West show.
Queen Victoria attended twice and at the first performance, the Queen bowed when a cowboy rode into the ring holding an American flag - highly symbolic given that this was the first time since the War of Independence that a British ruler had honoured the stars and stripes.
Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill
The highlight of the Wild West Show was a re-enactment of Custer's Last Stand, though some sources claim that Buffalo Bill played Custer in the show, others state that the part of Custer was played by various performers, while Cody would ride in to avenge the death of Custer - 'The first scalp for Custer.' He would yell from the back of his trademark white horse. This is partly based on truth for it was Cody who had killed and scalped the Indian, Yellow Hair and although it seems unlikely it was generally believed for many years that it had been Yellow Hair who had killed Custer at the Little Big Horn.
Though in truth no one knows who actually killed Custer, indeed the Indians would not have recognized him since he had been out of uniform, wearing buckskins at the battle and his famous flowing locks had been cropped short to hide encroaching baldness.
What is known that on 25th June 1876, General Custer led 210 men of America's elite 7th Calvary into battle near the Little Big Horn in what is present day Montana and confronted thousands of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. The Calvary were wiped out, but Custer, realizing the situation was hopeless, may have even killed himself once he saw the battle was lost. He had suffered two bullet shots - one in the heart and one in the head.
Still, why let the truth get in the way of a good story....
'More worrisome to him was the fact that the joints of his fingers had started to swell, when it got cold. For most of his life he had paid no attention to weather; weather was just there. He never let it interfear with his work or his movements. In time, the weather would always change, but the work wouldn't wait. Now it seemed, weather was interfearing plenty. When the cold struck his wrist joints became swollen, and the joints of his fingers even more so.'
The Streets of Lardeo is the sequal to the Pulitzer Prize winning, Lonesome Dove and where it was the second book published in the series it is actually the fourth book chronologically. The author would follow this novel with a couple of prequel novels (Dead Man's Walk and Commanche Moon) that looked at the early days of Captain Call and Augustus McCrae. This book though is a direct sequal to that first novel and not to be confused with that TV movie, Return to Lonesome Dove which is a poor substitute to this, the real conclusion to a beautifully written, painfully realistic western tetralogy . In The Streets of Laredo, McMurtry adds the final strokes to the story of Captain Call, and gives the character a worthy if somewhat depressing send off.
The book is all about growing old - as the Wild West that needed men like Captain Call slowly fades into history then so too do men like Call. McMurtry's westerns have never been about gun blazing heroics, although there are plenty, but more about presenting in as vivid and truthful a fashion as possible the real cruelty of the period. The book opens many years after the events told in Lonesome Dove and when we meet up with Captain Call he is an aged character, someone better suited to spending his days in a rocker whittling away at pieces of wood, but Call doesn't pay much attention to his growing old and has long as he can still do what he sets his mind to he doesn't really think about the changes age brings to his once strong body.
'When she looked out the door of the rooming house and saw Captain Call coming, she had been shocked at how decrepit he looked. Pea Eye had mentioned, casually, that the Captain wasn't as spry as he had been, but the comment hadn't prepared her how the man actually looked.'
Call find himself hired by the railroad to track down the youthful bandit, Joey Garza who is making a name for himself by striking trains across the Mexican border. Call is teamed up with Brookshire, a man of the East who is really not suited to the harsh conditions in the West - he spends much of his time either chasing his hat which blows off in the Texas winds or pining for his bossy wife, Kate. Soon they are joined by yound deputy, Plunkert who is no more suitable that Brookshire and also spends much of his time thinking of the young wife he felt behind in Laredo. Both of these men will lose their wives during the long journey ahead of them.
As well as Joey Garza, Call has to contend with Mox Mox, the manburner, a truly sadistic character who takes great pleasure from burning people alive - man, woman or child it matters not to the runty bandit and some of the scenes concerning the character, although largely told in flashback, are truly stomach churning. It's not all grim though - there are many great character moments. The Indian tracker, Famous Shoes offers some great comedic relief and there is a scene where a group of whores are talking about the first men in their lives that displays the author's incredible skill with character and dialogue.
In the end Captain Call is a legend and the author skilfully weaves his story around several real historical characters, Charles Goodnight, Hanging Huge Roy Bean and John Wesley Harding for instance play major roles in this wonderfully written epic of the old West.
'Call was no longer the man who had lived in the old times; he was no longer even the man who had killed Mox Mox. That man was not the cripple who lived in a granery, in a barn on the Quitaque. That man lived back somewhere in memory, across a canyone, across the Pecos; that man had been blown away, as Brookshire feared he would be, on the plains of time.'
To sum up - a wonderful book that must be read. Absoluely astounding - lyrical, elegiac and jaw dropping!
Like the other books in the series, Streets of Laredo was made into a TV mini-series, this time with James Garner in the role of Captain Call.
Red Brandon did a roaring trade at his saloon in Nebraska - his wife, Ada danced to entertain the customers but one day Red got jealous when one customer positioned himself at the foot of the stage when Red's wife did her high kicks, giving the customer a worm's eye view as it were. Red shot him dead and nailed his spectacles to the stage to warn future customers.
Rancher Jack Zeims of Hutchinson Kansas would not fence his horses, believing they had the right to wander at will. However when a neighbour fenced off his own property to stop the horses wandering in Zack shot him dead. The idealist was hung and his horses sold off.
Jim Bowie knifed Major Norris Wright to death in 1827. The dead man's brother swore revenge and when Bowie was asleep in the town hotel he planned on sneaking into his room and putting a knife in his heart, but the man fell on the knife while sharpening it for the task and bled to death.
As soon as I saw this book covered on the blog of good friend and western writer, Nik Morton (read Nick's review HERE) I just had to have it. And so one quick visit up the Amazon and I have the rather thin but quite detailed book in my grubby Welsh mitts.
Published by YLolfa Books, a Welsh company who specialise in Welsh publications, the book comes in at less than a hundred pages but don't let that put you off - there is a wealth of interesting material between the covers.
For instance I never knew of Jesse James' Welsh heritage but then with a surname like James I should have guessed that there was a little Taffy in the DNA somewhere down the line.
Being Welsh myself and a western novelist I 've often wrote about my feeling of an affinity with this period so it was great to read about that the Welsh were out there blazing trails along with all the other nationalities that went into the mixing pot of the American frontier. It was especially nice to read about William Davies who came from Pen-Y-graig, a village only a stone's throw from where I was born and raised and even closer to where I live now.
A great little slice of Western and Welsh history...it's high noon boyo.
This week we have our usual trawl of the Wild West Web as well as a question/answer session with newcomer to the Black Horse Range, Lee Walker AKA Ed Furguson. That's him over there on the left.
But first our regular look around the web for western content - well it seems neat to start with Lee Walker's Westerns which is Ed's own blog. And of course the first stop in any western web trawl is the excellent Western Fiction Review, the site is updated several times a week and the current post is an interview with Keith Hetherington, a writer with years of experience in the western genre. In the mood for a some western fiction, well head over to Short Barrel Fiction, where there are stories for all tastes. Davy Crockett's Almanack is featuring some varied subjects of late but there's always something western going on. Meridian Bridge goes from strength to strength and has lately posted an interview with Mr. Bill Crider. I especially liked that one. And finally Nik Morton informs us on his blog of the latest news on the eagerly awaited anthology, A Fistful of Legends - it's getting exciting now. And this gives us another neat link into our Q+A session as Lee Walker also has a story in the forthcoming collection.
LEE WALKER Q+A
Lee Walker's debut western, Gun Law is due from Robert Hale this December
How does it feel to be joining the Black Horse range?
It’s great! I’m definitely the new kid on the range but I’ve found everyone involved with Black Horse Westerns to be very supportive and encouraging. I’m amazed at their level of enthusiasm for the genre and have found that everyone wants others to succeed. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting that.
What does the Western mean to you?
As a kid, I remember curling up on the sofa on a wet Sunday afternoon watching old black and white cowboy movies with my grandfather so I guess I’ve always had a soft spot for them.
From a historical point of view, the more I read, the more I am amazed at the sheer bravery and determination of the men and women who pioneered the West, settled it and finally tamed it.
I admire the breadth, quality and sheer creativeness of western writers and get annoyed when people get a little ‘snooty’ about the genre.
Where do you see the western's future?
I think it’s healthy and as long the genre adapts to other means of distribution like Kindle, E-Books, POD etc I don’t see any reason why the stories will not continue to sell. When I speak to people about western books, they tell me you can’t get your hands on second hand books because they sell so well and people collect them. In libraries, borrowing frequency is still high (check out how many times the books are borrowed) so there is still a very healthy interest in them and I don’t see that going away.
It is frustrating though, to go into large bookshops like Borders and Waterstones and not see a dedicated Western section!
What should readers expect from your books?
Hopefully, characters they can believe in and a good action-packed yarn. Gun Law was my first book and although I’m proud of it, already I can see ways I could have improved on it. I hope in subsequent books to keep growing and improving as a writer.
Future projects?
I’ve got a few things in the pipeline.
Gun Law comes out at the end of December so I’ll be busy working on the publicity for that.
I was delighted to have a short story called Dead Man Walking accepted for the second anthology of short stories from Express Westerns – A Fistful of Legends – and I have been working on a couple of short stories (The Angels and Demons, The Kid) for future anthologies
I recently sent John Hale the first three chapters and synopsis of Gold Fever, my second BHW and he responded favorably and has asked me to send him the completed manuscript, so I’m busy putting the finishing touches to that.
I signed up for this years National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) which started on 1st November and I’m busy blitzing through a 50,000 word first draft of a novel with the working title, ‘The Man Who Wouldn’t Die’, which if I finish, will hopefully become my 3rd BHW.
I reckon those projects will keep me busy until the end of the year!
I’m already setting New Year goals for 2010 and have got outlines for another four books – nothing like setting your sights high, I say!
Writers that influence you?
Believe it or not, I’ve just discovered Louis L’Amour! (I told you I was new to westerns.) Thoroughly enjoying getting through his books and I’m a big fan of Matt Braun and Annie Proulx – and of course I try to get through as many BHW’s too!
Your writing practices?
I do try and write every day but don’t always achieve it. (I own a property business, have a full time job, a six year old and a large Airedale Terrier that needs long walks everyday!)
I like to come up with a title first and then I write out the plot using index cards breaking the story down into separate scenes the way a scriptwriter might. Once I’m happy with the arc of the story, I can then start to develop the characters and do any research I need. Of course, these parts all work together, so sometimes the character changes the plot, or another idea comes out of the research that changes the direction but I try to have it all worked out before I knuckle down to the writing.
Advice for aspiring writers?
Never give up. Enjoy the journey. Don’t do it for the money. Seeing your name on a book makes it all worth it!
Desert Island Western - both book and movie
I would take the complete collection of Time Life Western books which I am working my way through at the moment. Great photographs, very informative and great research for BHW’s – although they are so enjoyable to read, it doesn’t feel like work.
It's Wednesday which means it's time for another trawl around the wild west web in search of the best western content - THE STORY WITH NO NAME is over on Broken Trails. This is part 13 and is penned by none other than western favourite Jack Giles. There are also links to the previous instalments. The Archive is saddened to learn that the Louis L'Amour project is no more - Chris just doesn't have to time to maintain the blog but we do hope he comes back one day. Jeff Smith of Soapy Smith's soapbox has been out and about promoting his new bookie - check it out HERE.
James Reasoner's blog Rough Edges has been taken over by a guest blogger - Norman German tells us about his latest historical crime novel which will be of interest to western fans. There's also a chance to get one of the book in a giveaway draw. What are you waiting for - get over there! There's always some interesting information on the old western pulps over on Laurie Powers' blog.
The always excellent Meridian Bridge has just published a great post which is essential reading for tech savvy western fans - the piece looks at the western fiction currently available as Ebooks and provides some great links. This takes my vote for most useful post of the week.
Go to Black Horse Express for all you Black Horse Western news - the blog maintained by Ian Parnham is the place that collects together links to all of the Black Horse information on the wild west web. Head over toEd Gorman's blog for his unique marketing campaign - buy this book, I need the money. Click on the image left to go to the Book Depository where you can get the book at a great price which includes free worldwide delivery.
And finally for this week Davy Crockett's Almanac is worth visiting daily - scrub that, visit several times a day. This guy is such a prolific poster that we've got him lined up for a feature as part of the Archive's Sherlock Holmes weekend coming on 7th November 2009. Like The Archive, the Almanac is varied in the subjects its covers with a large percentage having a western interest.
The western is one of the most vapid, infantile forms of art ever conceived by the brain of a Hollywood movie producer - Dwight Macdonald, The Miscellany
When in doubt make a western - John Ford
While literary men seem to have neglected their epic duties, the epic has been saved for us by the westerns (and) by of all places, Hollywood - Jorgie Luis Borges
I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam - Tom Mix
MANCHÁN MAGAN sets off on road trip through Arizona and New Mexico
AS I FOLLOWED in the footsteps of Billy the Kid through Arizona and New Mexico recently, for a documentary, I stumbled on an ideal route for a road trip through wonderfully quirky Wild West towns and swathes of beautifully bleached desert.
Billy wouldn’t top my list of interesting historical figures, but I owe him a debt for introducing me to this spectacular region of the southwestern US, along the border with Mexico. My suggestion would be to fly into Albuquerque, New Mexico, and out of Tucson, Arizona (or vice versa), and drive between the two.
The highlight of southern New Mexico is Lincoln, a tiny town between Capitan and Roswell that once was a trading hub and is now virtually a ghost town, with only 70 inhabitants, and a frontier feel has been remarkably well preserved. It is easy to imagine the cattle barons, cowboys, Apaches and Hispanics riding in from the mesquite-covered hills that stretch between the Capitan and Sacramento Mountains. FULL STORY HERE
Ever feel that too much is coming at once - again I've been on set all day today and Archive posts have suffered. However normal service will resume immediately after I've slept several hours. Come up tomorrow on the Archive we have a chat with myself and Chris of The Louis L'Amour Project, the first clue in our £100 Misfit Lil contest, a look at a few western comic strips and bags more. We're heading towards the next Wild West Monday and although this October month of Western posts has stuttered at the start we will be hurling western stuff your way.
And we've got several interviews coming up including one with electronic book pioneer Steve Jordan - so keep reading.
DRAW James Reasoner Berkley Books Originally published 2003 (Trade paperback edition)
As soon as I saw this book, penned by our good friend James Reasoner, looking down at me from the shelf I knew I had to buy it. I'm familiar with James' western fiction but the fact that he had written this non fiction study of the West's greatest gunfights came as a surprise. And a nice surprise at that.
The book is split into six sections, each containing several chapters devoted to true events and people of the American West. The sections are - man to man, gangs, posses, hold-ups, back shooters and finally gun fighting mishaps and misfortunes. I particularly found the chapter on Luke Short interesting but then I'd been reading a lot about the diminutive gambler lately and the entry in this book perfectly complimented my research.
All of the well know gunfighters have chapters devoted to them as well as several of the more obscure characters that have become footnotes in western history. As expected the book is well researched and perhaps because of the author's experience as a fiction writer it is more than a staid list of dates and facts. Reasoner goes to great pains to flush out the historical characters as much as possible. I only bought the book this morning and spent a couple of hours this afternoon going through the first hundred pages - true it's a reference book that I will refer to from time to time, whenever a fact is needed, but it reads so well that I found it hard to put down. And will, no doubt, finish it this evening.
The author mentions in his introduction that most of the research was done by his wife, Livia so much kudos must be laid at her feet. This book has enough meat on its bones to interest Old West buffs but the writing style is so immediate that casual readers with only a passing interest in the subject will find it interesting. There' some nice photographs in there too.
A great introduction into gunfighter lore and those heady days of American history known as The Wild West.
Why write western fiction? By western we mean novels/stories set in the Old West - usually, but not exclusively between the years immediately following the civil war and upto 1890. Who would want to read western fiction in the world we live in today?
Many people clearly do - the western provides a form of escapism, a comfort zone that is becoming more and more important in the frantic world we live in today. There is an enduring quality in taking the imaginative leap to a time long gone and finding that the issues facing people were remarkably similar to those we face on a daily basis, it is inspiring to read about people facing up to life's trials and tribulations and standing resolute against anything thrown at them. The western as a literary genre had its golden age sometime around the middle of the last century and indeed the writers of that period are still widely read today - L'amour, Zane Grey. But to find the roots of the genre you have to travel further back, much further - in fact to the Old West itself when hack writers were mythologising the West even as it was going on around them.
Perhaps the defining classic of the genre is Owen Wister's The Virginian, first published in 1901. The book sold 300,000 copies in its first year, led the American bestseller lists for most of 1902 and by 1968 had sold over 2 million copies. It is perhaps the most widely read book about that period we call, "the wild west" and shaped the conventions of the genre for generations of writers to follow. Anyone wanting to write a western simply must read this seminal work.
There was a time when everything was clear cut in the western - the hero always wore a white hat, the baddie a black one. Right and wrong were clearly defined and there was a code to be followed but these days practically anything goes in a western. Modern issues can be tackled and many writers cleverly disguise the concerns of the 21st century within their narrative. In short there is no kind of story the western can not tell - crime, romance, horror, comedy. The western is versatile enough to accommodate them all.
SO WHERE DO I START ? Research is very important in the westerns. You must get the details right, particularly with guns and location. I've often been enjoying a book and then I notice some mistake the writer has made and it drags me out of the story. Even minor mistakes can ruin a story. However the aspiring western writer should take heart in the fact that mostly everyone knows what the west would have looked like. This makes the writers' job that much easier and with the advent of the internet any required information is usually only a few key-strokes away.
THE ACTUAL WRITING. There is no one way to do this. Some writers like to rush through the first draft and then take care of structure, style and plot problems in the re-write. Others are more cautious and will plod along, revising as they go and when that first draft comes out it needs very little tweaking. I hop between both camps but I do like to keep the story moving along, to give it pace and I actually look forward to the revising once the first draft is complete. For me the first draft is a necessary evil and getting it out of the way is all important.
CHARACTERS. It is good characterisation that can turn a good story into a great one. Try and put yourself in your characters mindset and think what you would do in a given situation, however it is important to put modern inhibitions aside. You would have been a very different person had you been alive in the 1880's. Perhaps the single most helpful piece of advice for creating characters is READ, READ AND READ. Only by studying the work of writers you admire can you ever hope to understand the process involved in creating realistic people to populate what is after all an outlandish fictional landscape.
STOP PROCRASTINATING AND GET DOWN TO IT. The biggest thing is to stop talking about it and get on with it, as difficult as it can be to find time in our hectic lives it is important to be stubborn and get down to the actual writing. You must make time - no matter what- or your creation will always be a pipe dream. Remember it is no different writing a western to any other form of genre fiction and the tools used will always be the same. Behind every successful (define successful as professionally published)writer is a person who was pig headed enough to get on with writing no matter what was going on around them.
THE BEST ADVICE. And here it is, the best advice anyone can give someone wanting to write for a living, anyone wanting to hone their craft and create readable prose. It's nothing mythical. no arcane knowledge belonging to a select few. It is this - READ. Read everything you can get your hands on, devour every western that comes your way. Pay attention to the accepted masters of the genre and read classic as well as modern westerns. Look at what contemporary authors are doing with the genre. Just because the lone gunfighter is becoming a cliché doesn't mean you should forsake him or even her as the case may be. There are certain conventions the western fan demands and only by being familiar to the genre can the writer hope to recognise what these are.
So get writing, you've an arduous trail ahead of you but with stamina and a self belief as wide as the prairies you can do it.
