Looking Forward

I am looking forward to the next week or two when Blood and Blazes in Upamona will be available in my cotton-picking digits. The sequel to The Upamona Gold Claim Wrangle is about the return of Slim Sanglant to the small town from his time in prison and he begins hunting for revenge on the people who sent him there. But, what ho!, Red Skene is now the county sheriff and he is looking into the matter. With Slim supposedly in the mountains still looking for gold and herding sheep, Red's cousin's house is burned to the ground, and then his brother-in-law's friend is shot and killed and there are more fires and people disappearimg, and unbeknownst to Red, his wife is on the verge of having an affair with one of his deputies.
Red calls on another deputy to assist him in tracking down the culprit(s) that are causing all the havoc. Woe is me! Will Red and his deputy find them before they kill someone else? What's Slim doing in the mountains?
What's going on?

Blood and Blazes in Upamona is availabe for pre-order now at Amazon in paper and on the Kindle. Barnes and Noble has the cover picture and it is available to order now from there supply, and more places will be coming on line as time goes by. ORDER YOUR COPY NOW!!!!

A bigger cover photo will be forthcoming when I recieve the book.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING WEEK TO EVERYONE!!

Indian Captivity of John Tanner

John Tanner was about nine years old when he was captured by the Shawnee and later on joined the Ojibway Indians. He finished his childhood as an Indian eventually forgetting how to speak English. He was known as "The Falcon" in their lanugauge, "Shaw-shaw-wa Benase," as it is written under his photograph at the beginning of the book.

After a couple years with the Shawnee, he was traded to the Ottowas during a night of heavy consumption of alcohol by the Indians, and his new mother treated him much better than before. He became more involved in their way of life, hunting, skinning animals, etc., and the day-to-day work of their camps as they moved around. His new stepfather was an Ojibway. Tanner went on hunting parties, raiding parties, trading parties, etc., and one time killed 24 bears and 10 moose. He says he killed the ten moose with seven balls (bullets), which I find hard to believe.

After some time with the Shawnee and Ottowaws, he joined some Red River Ojibbeways (his spelling), and the main enemy is the Sioux, with whom they had several encounters. He ran into white men (traders) on occasion and they urged him to return to the States. He wanted to do that, but felt that the time was not right. Of course he took an Indian wife and had to consider that aspect as well. He did try to return to the white man ways, but it was a struggle and his white friends said he was a mean and contentious person.

His narrative was first printed in 1830. The book I have was printed in 1956 an edition of two thousand copies. I have copy No. 509. This narrative is very interesting and readable, telling about all the customs and ways of these Indians, including times of hunger, war, happiness, disillusionment, and the day-to-day activities in which he was involved. There is also a good deal of interaction with other tribes, the Crees, Assiniboines, Yanktongs, Mandans, Muskegoes (not very well liked), etc.  The book was prepared for the press by Edwin James, M.D., who also edited an account of Major Long's Rocky Mountain expeditions. It is 427 pages long, and Mr. Tanner had a great memory to recount all of his thirty years with the Indians.

Dead Reckoning by Mike Blakely

Just finished Dead Reckoning by Mike Blakely and thought I should tell what I think about it before it fades out of my memory and becomes one of those books that I know I've read but can't recall anything about. Well, there I go thinking again.

Dee Hassard, con man, thief, killer, etc., is being hauled off to jail by Frank Moncrief, but Hassard retrieves a hidden gun at a rest point and shoots Frank and the story begins. Hassard takes the place of the right Reverend Moncrief  (Frank's brother) by trickery. A group of religious zealots have hired Reverend Moncrief to take them over the mountains but Hassard intercedes and poses as the guide the group hired. They are searching for the Cross on the Mountain to establish their church, and now the real guide (Moncrief)  is after Hassard for killing his brother and stealing his job.

And the plot thickens with Clarence Philbrick saving a lost wife from a fate worse than death and telling her to join the group of relligious nuts, who will take care of her, but Philbrick decides he can't let her go and becomes the main obstacle to Hassard's leadership. Philbrick is on his way to New Mexico with a pile of gold to buy up some land, including the little town of Guajalote, where a nun has a vision that their salvation rests at the Cross of the Mountain. She and a young lad head for the Mountain Cross not knowing about the other nuts, uh-oh, religious people, also looking for it.  Oh yes, the husband of the wife is also looking for her, but he is mean and abusive, and doesn't survive the discovery of her and Philbrick and the church people and Mr. Hassard. Poor lost soul!

They all gather at a point where the Mountain Cross is visible, Hassard and Philbrick, the right Reverend Moncrief, the nun and the young lad, and all the members of the Church of the Weeping Virgin for the grand finale. Who survives this clash? You must pick up a copy and see what happens.

I had never heard of Mr. Blakely until I bought his novel, but I will be reading more of his stories because he writes a very interesting and exciting story with humor and a finger on the pulse of the West. He also wrote Comanche Dawn, Too Long at the Dance, Forever Texas, and others that I'll be looking forward to reading. His website is: mikeblakely.com.

True West Mag adverts

I've just been thumbing through the November True West Magazine. Why my attention was drawn to the advertising, I don't know, but it was. I guess it's because I found it interesting. Saga of a Comanche Warrior was the last ad for a book in the mag, and it was almost buried in the lower right-hand corner of the seventh-to-the-last page. Also on the page are ads for outfitters, hand-made branding irons, gun holsters and collectibles, stirrup buckles, and beds made out of trees. That's probably the real reason I look at the ads - the variety and there is variety in the section called Trading Post: vintage western wear, guns of the old West, museum of the horse soldier, more guns, longhorns to mount on your wall, cowboy poetry, custom leathers, glassware, hat cozys and the collected stories of Red Barbre in Tales of the West. This book's ad was twice the size of Comanche Warrior's. I wonder how many more sales are generated by the larger ad or does it make a difference?

And the preceding page to that has books: Doc's Girls, about Doc Holliday, in a full column ad; Rio Sonora, a novel about the Arizona Rangers (sounds like a good one); Forts, Fights and Frontier Sites, self-explanatory; the last two being half-column. On the same page is an article about a book, The Cowgirl Way by Holly George-Warren. The page previous has articles on books to read while traveling, histories and facts about Wyoming, Nebraska, Europe and Lewis and Clark Trail and Ghost Town Travelogues. How did Europe get in there? And there is a full column ad on the Ghost Town books.

I would like to have all the books advertised or wrote about, and that's only in the last ten pages of the mag, but it's just not to be, unless my wife buys them for Christmas presents. And that's highly doubtful, since she has no interest in the mag. Maybe I can slip it into the Ladies Home Journal or Southern Cooking or, even better, Vanity Fair.  

    

Arkansas Smith by Jack Martin

Arkansas Smith, former Texas Ranger, rides into Red Rock on his white horse, no, it was actually a sorrel, to find his old friend, Will McCord, shot and seriously wounded lying among the debris inside his cabin. So the novel Arkansas Smith by Jack Martin (Gary Dobbs) begins and continues through its twists and turns, as Arkansas vows to leave no chapter incomplete as he looks for the dirty culprits who did this to his old Ranger buddy.

Arkansas fixes McCord the best he can and heads to town to find a doctor to extract the bullet lodged in McCord's belly parts, after his friend tells him that it was probably a feller named Lance who has been trying to buy him out, that did this to him. After a couple of chapters, there is a flashback that relates the touching story of how Arkansas got his moniker.

After the doctor leaves and tells Ark that his friend will survive, a female entersthe picture. And the plot thickens and the suspense is growing, because the woman is the daughter of the Lance feller, but appears to be willing to help McCord and Arkansas. And in a tightly woven story, the heroes carry on to the final meeting with Lance, who turns out to be a pyromaniac or some other type of maniac and justice wins out.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this western, the second by Mr. Martin/Dobbs, the first being The Tarnished Star, and would recomnend it without a second thought. It carries you right along, and before you know it,  you've read the the whole thing and want more.

Arkansas Smith is a Black Horse Western published in Great Britain in 2010. I ordered my copy through Barnes and Noble and it took a long time to get it.

A Visit to the Outpatient Clinic

This has been a bad week! Beginning Tuesday with the prep for a colonoscopy, when you are forced to drink a gallon and a half or two gallons of foul-tasting liquid as fast as you can with a little touch of lemon added. I know this test is very popular among older people for some obscure reason like the prevention of cancer, but it is pure torture. After you've devoured the liquid, your stomach starts to rumble and roar and you visit the bathroom several times in hopes of  a little relief, but your stomach keeps talking to you off and on for hours, And you can't have anything to eat except clear liquids, no alcohol to ease the pangs of horrific thunder and lightning in the belly parts. I don't drink anyway, but on this occasion a little nip would have been helpful.

The next morning you ease out of bed after a nearly sleepless night and mentally prepare yourself for the actual exam of the lower pipes. The reason I'm here so soon after the last exam (a year ago) is because the doctor found a polyp that had a lesion of some sort around it and he couldn't take it all out with the little snipper. He sent part of it away to be looked at by microbiologists or whatever they call themselves to see if there was any cancer found and painted the rest with india ink. There was no cancer, but he recommended another exam within six to twelve months, and voila! here we are stumbling toward the outpatient department, my wife and I.

We stop at the registration desk to let them know we are here and sit down and wait. After an interminable amount of time (it was actually only about five minutes), they call my name and take me into a little room where I have to divulge every disease, bruise, and operation I ever had in my life and what they did to cure it and all my personal history in case I didn't survive the exam. And then fork over my driver's license, medical cards, will, medical living will, trust account, and keys to my car, plus all my coupons for restaurants. That last item didn't sound kosher to me, but luckily I didn't have any coupons with me. And then I had to turn in my dentures, wooden leg, hairpiece, wrist watch, and metal inserts and other paraphenalia that might interfere with the procedure, and I was told to go wait in the room under the TV and they will call me.

Thirty minutes later, I was sitting up in a hospital bed naked except for one of those gowns with no back and getting my blood pressure taken and needles stuck in my arm and another round of questions. The doctor came in and introduced herself and left and I was wheeled into another room, told to lay on my left side, and kerplunk! the next thing I knew I was in the recovery room with the pretty nurse yelling my name over and over. I finally came out of it and saw my wife sitting in a chair patiently waiting for me with a picture of my insides. It was the most disgusting photo I'd seen in a long time with a little piece of metal sticking out of my intestine.

"That's where they're going to operate," said my wife. "They have to cut out that ugly thing there," pointing at the picture. "Otherwise, you're just fine." She gave me a wink and a nod, and chuckled.

I got dressed, collected all my wooden legs and such and we went home, sore belly and all. She had to drive, because I was placed on limited duty to just sit and relax and laugh at the ugly picture and wait for the doctor to call. "We have to take that out before it gets cancerous," the doctor told me.

The cute little nurse named Roshon was very helpful and did an outstanding job with the needles and such for which I was grateful.

New Followers/Reading

I have overlooked the fact that I have some new followers, and I would like to correct that now and welcome Paul D. Brazill (pdbrazill.blogspot.com/) and Marsha Ward (marshaward.blogspot.com) to the blog, and thanks to them and the others who I hope I haven't overlooked, but if so, I apologize for the oversight and certainly welcome them aboard, too.

Over the last few weeks, I've procured the following books to add to my bookshelf:

1. Dead Freight for Piute by Luke Short, a 4th printing in 1968, Bantam pocket book that's falling apart
2. Gunsights by Elmore Leonard, 2nd printing July 1985, Bantam pocket book
3.Texas Blood Feud by Dusty Richards, 1st printing Nov 2009, a Pinnacle pocket book
4. Texas Iron by Robert J. Randisi, 1st printing Leisure Books, Feb 2008, pocket book
5. Legend, a pocket book of short stories by Elmer Kelton, Judy Alter, Loren D. Estleman, James Reasoner, Jane Candia Coleman, Ed Gorman and Robert J. Randisi, Leisure Book, l999, pocket book
6. Showdown at Yellow Butte by Louis L'Amour, 3rd printing, Feb 1984, Bantam, pocket book
7. Arkansas Smith by Jack Martin, A Black Horse Western, First Published in Great Britain 2010, Hardback
8. Appaloosa by Robert B. Parker, Berkley Trade Paperback Edition, January 2010
9.  Meloncholy Baby by Robert B. Parker, A Sunny Randall Novel, G. P. Putnam hardback, it's either a First or Second Edition (?)

There is one other book which I wanted to list seperately in light of the Ian Fleming/Raymond Chandler interview on David Cranmer's davidcranmer.blogspot.com (The Education of a Pulp Writer). There was one little mention in the interview of Chandler's last book that he was still working on that is set in Palm Springs, CA, and I am under the impression that this book is it, Poodle Springs, by Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker, a G. P. Putnam and Sons hardback of 1989, a First Edition, a Spenser novel. It was just coincidental that it fell into my hands because I only buy non-westerns occasionally, and it seems the last couple of months there was a new spurt for mysteries. This book and Meloncholy Baby were purchased at different times for a dollar each at a local cafeteria bookstand.  Since both authors are now in Paradise, Poodle Springs may increase in value, but too bad it isn't autographed. Mr. Parker finished the book after Chandler's death in 1959.

Of the books listed above I have read Showdown at Yellow Butte, Appaloosa, Arkansas Smith and Meloncholy Baby, The others are on the TBR list yelling out to be read, and I am anxious to get started, but I am barely into Dead Reckoning by Mike Blakely, first things first.

I'm such a slow reader it takes me somethimes a week, sometimes a month or two to finish a book anymore.
Just too many things going on to devote time in one sitting to completely read a book. In the olden days, it wasn't like this, but time gets crowded-er as life shortens.

Desert Heat

The novel, Desert Heat, by J.A. JANCE, was an interesting read, although I thought maybe there was a little too much time spent at the hospital with Joanna Brady worrying about her husband (the patient) and her mother's meddling. Her husband, a policeman in Bisbee, AZ, was found in a gully not far from home by Joanna. He had been shot and was severely wounded and taken to the hospital in Tucson by helicopter followed by Joanna and the Bisbee chief of police. It takes nearly a third of the book to cover the two or three days at the hospital, before it moves back to Bisbee with the DEA, the police, and drug smugglers. Her husband, Andy, died and she returns to Bisbee to take care of funeral arrangements, etc.. The police are saying Andy committed suicide, and Joanna knows better, since he wasn't the type.

In Bisbee, she gets a mysterious call from a strange girl who says she knows who the killer is and wants to sell a book she stole that has names and dates, etc., of the killer's drug deals. The killer follows the girl and puts Joanna in fear of being killed along with the girl. It all comes to an end with the Bisbee police, the DEA, and Joanna, herself, wielding a weapon in a shootout near the same gully where her husband was found.

Can't say that it didn't keep my attention level at a high point as I rode along with Joanna and it was certainly worth the time. Try it you'll like it, if you are a mystery fan or even a Western novel fan. Like I said previously, this is the introduction of the Joanna Brady series of mysteries and if you like a well wrought mystery novel you may find these highly to your liking.    

Smoking/No Smoking

I see where the Spanish Government is outlawing smoking in restaurants and bars. This is a big blow to the smoking populace there, which is about everyone, at least it was back in the l950's. I can still smell the fresh buffalo chip odors of the clientele of the small hotel lobby and bar that I lived in for a couple of years as they lit up their Bisontes and puffed away. And all the other smoke-filled bars and restaurants I frequented every day of the week. By the odds, I should have died a long time ago from second-hand smoke or first-hand alcohol poisoning.

There were more than a couple establishments where the smoke was so thick you could cut it with the over-used knife. I never acquired the habit or understood the pull of cigarettes, no matter the language. Not that I didn't try a Camel or a Lucky Strike once or twice, and I would puff on a cigar once in awhile just to make everyone around me mad, and of course the pipe, which I tried out off and on over the years, maybe using three or four packages of tobacco total. 

A few times, back in the 1930's, my brother and I sneaked into the local beer tavern and pool hall to see what was going on, and the smoke was just as bad there as anywhere in Spain, although store-bought cigarettes was not the ciggy of choice due to the cost - it was Bull Durham. I used to stare in wonder at an older brother as he pulled the little white bag of tobacco out of his shirt pocket and pick out a paper from the tiny package, pour some of the baccy onto it, lick the edge of it, and roll it into a nice little cigarette with one end twisted and wet to keep the tobacco from falling out. The older brother would make a fine art of this procedure and light the end of the cigarette, tip his head back and blow smoke rings toward the ceiling, and give me that look of perfect satisfaction.
Watching this for most of my young years, I should've been converted or recruited to the practice, but I never liked the smell or the fact you had to carry all that trash around with you with no convenient place to stick 'em.

The saloons and dance halls of the Old West were just as bad or maybe even worse with all the smoke and spittoons on the floors. Spittoons were still around in the local taverns when I was growing up. In my estimation they were more destructive than the second-hand smoke and spread TB and other diseases, at least I think they did from the signs that used to be posted around San Francisco and some military bases, e.g. "Don't expectorate if you expect to rate around here".

Next up: Desert Heat

My First Actual Writers' Conference

Although not a western in the way of the traditional western, e.g., cowboys and Indians and the like, novelist J. A. Jance writes stories set in the modern West, at least one of her novels was set in Bisbee and Tucson, Arizona. I know because I just finished reading Desert Heat, the first Joanna Brady mystery. Mrs. Jance writes mysteries, but this is the only one of hers I've read, and I picked it up on the cheap, a pocketbook in its 10th or 20th printing (one of these days I'll have to learn how to distinguish what printing a book is actually in).

I procured this book in preparation for the Avondale Writers Conference, not knowing anything about the author or the material she writes, although I've seen a number of her works displayed in the bookstores. Ms. Jance was scheduled to be the keynote speaker and have a book signing afterward, and I thought I should at least know a little about her before she appeared, hoping that I would be able to have a brief conversation with her about writing or whatever. Fat chance of that as it turned out. After her remarks at the end of the day, I attempted to get close enough to speak with her, but there were so many other writers or attendees that had the same idea, that I was on the fringe of a mob rushing to her table. Another opportunity lost, but I had to leave.

As it was, I enjoyed the conference and the speakers, but there were no editors or agents there as far as I could determine.

My perspective on Desert Heat in the next post (?).

A 10-gal. hat holds around 3qts., enough for a quick rinse-off on a hot desert day or about the same as a good boot (cowboy, not the KITA-type) .