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Western Bookshelf
NONFICTION
BAKER, T. LINDSAY. American Windmills: An Album of Historic Photographs. University of Oklahoma Press, Hardcover, $34.95, 168 pps., 169 photographs. ISBN 978-0-8061-3802-2.
Rising like sentinels on the plains, windmills became beacons for settlers, a sign that folks had come to carve out a home and stay in a landscape so big and wide it could not be seen with a single eye-view. T. Lindsay Baker is without doubt one of the true experts on windmills. He’s been studying them for decades, taking photographs of them, and copying old photographs he’s found in his travels. Now he brings the story of America’s windmills to all of us in American Windmills: An Album of Historic Photographs.
There are photos of windmill manufacturing, erection, and maintenance. There are pictures of windmills in the 1880s and in the 1980s, clearly showing that this unique contraption is as practical now as it was then. Many of the images relate to windmills and Western ranches. There are photos taken by the great Nebraska photographer Solomon Butcher from the 1880s to the early 1900s, which depict not only windmills, but also sod or log homes, families in buckboards or seated in chairs outside, and livestock ranging from horses and cattle to pigs and chickens.
The water tanks associated with windmills served stock, were a place for boys to swim, and were even used by preachers conducting baptisms.
In addition to these photographs, many of them true classics, Baker shares his knowledge of windmills as he takes us into the factories of commercial windmills, and to the places where people constructed their own home-built windmills.
The book includes an insightful preface by John Carter, Nebraska State Historical Society senior research associate and photography curator. This book would be particularly useful to writers who are incorporating windmills into their stories.
BLAKE, MICHAEL F. Hollywood and the O.K. Corral: Portrayals of the Gunfight and Wyatt Earp. McFarland, paperback, 255 pps., $39.95. ISBN 0-7864-2632-2.
On October 26, 1881, Wyatt Earp, his brothers Morgan and Virgil, and
Doc Holliday hurled three men into eternity at a vacant lot near the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona Territory. That gunfight has become iconic, part of the American vernacular, inspiring historians, novelists, filmmakers—and one film historian.
Michael F. Blake, an Emmy Award-winning makeup artist whose books include Code of Honor: The Making of Three Great American Westerns (required reading for any fan of High Noon, Shane, and The Searchers), examines Hollywood’s take on the O.K. Corral and Wyatt Earp in this lively read that blends Western and film history.
Blake chronicles the making of eight large-screen depictions of the gunfight, first filmed as Frontier Marshal (1939) with Randolph Scott as Earp. Other movies followed, like John Ford’s classic My Darling Clementine (1946) and the wretched Doc (1971). Blake also includes the forgotten Tombstone: The Town Too Tough to Die (1942), the slam-bang Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), the dark Hour of the Gun (1967),
the surprise hit Tombstone (1993), and box-office bomb Wyatt Earp (1994).
Hollywood and the O.K. Corral is full of trivia and insight. For instance, James Stewart was considered to play Doc Holliday in My Darling Clementine; and Burt Lancaster didn’t want the part of Wyatt while Jack Palance was “terribly upset” at not landing the Holliday role in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
Blake knows his movies, and this book is a great read for anyone interested in the Earp legend and/or Hollywood’s West.
CLAYTON, JOHN. The Cowboy Girl: The Life of Caroline Lockhart. University of Nebraska Press, paperback, 321 pps., $21.95. ISBN 978-0-8032-5990-4.
Much like her contemporary, Nellie Bly, Caroline Lockhart began her literary career as a “stunt girl,” writing for the Boston Post. She later was a travel writer for the Philadelphia Bulletin, and at the time of her first trip west was writing for Lippincott’s Magazine. She moved permanently to Cody, Wyoming in 1904.
Willful and fearless, Lockhart may have been the first woman to raft the treacherous Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho. She wrote seven novels, three of which were made into movies. Lockhart was famous for skewering her enemies by turning them into characters in her novels, and she may have been one of the first authors to have painted one of her characters as a lesbian. She spent five years as editor and publisher of a Cody newspaper and was instrumental in the organization of the first Cody Stampede Rodeo. In the later years of her life she established a cattle ranch in Montana, finally living out her dream of pursuing an Old West lifestyle.
Given Caroline Lockhart’s accomplishments during an era that was not particularly female-friendly, it is surprising that her story has remained so far under the radar until now. John Clayton presents a well balanced narrative biography of Lockhart, a woman obsessed with the West and whose passions often overshadowed her better judgment. It is a fascinating story and is a fitting addition to the University of Nebraska Press’ Women of the West series.
DARY, DAVID. True Tales of the Prairies & Plains. University Press of Kansas, hardcover, $24.95. ISBN 978-0-7006-1518-6.
In his latest venture, long-time WWA member and former president, David Dary, has given us a collection of thirty-nine wonderful stories and tales of middle America, ranging in locale from North Dakota and Montana to southern Texas, and from the tall-grass prairie to the front range of the Rocky Mountains. The vignette settingss are depicted on a master map of the region, thereby allowing the reader to pinpoint the location of each story.
The subject matter of this highly entertaining volume is wide and varied. One of the stories is that of “Portugee” John Phillips and his famous four day, 236-mile horseback ride through sleet, snow, and sub-zero temperatures to seek help for the beleaguered Fort Phil Kearny following the so-called “Fetterman Massacre.” Another explores the legend of whether outlaw Henry Starr really did leave a buried treasure in northern Oklahoma. Yet another documents the bizarre story of a house cat that traveled aboard a covered wagon from Missouri to California and along the way saved its young mistress from starvation.
Although Dary refuses to call himself a historian, his publishing record over the past thirty-five years proves otherwise. Whether the books from his fertile mind are those of a historian, historical writer, or story-teller really makes no difference. If the volume has David Dary’s name on it, you can be assured that it is not only accurate, but an absolute joy to read as well.
EVANS, MAX. For the Love of a Horse. University of New Mexico Press, hardcover, 225 pps., $25.95. ISBN: 9-780826-342744.
In this wonderful collection of essays and short stories, Ol’ Max Evans writes of horses he used on the San Cristobal Ranch in northern New Mexico, of Brownie, a cow horse he liked to ride for pleasure, and of his first horse, Cricket. He includes stories of Old Snip, Raggedy, Ann, Pelican, Powderface, Flax, Blackie, and Sleepy Kay, a slow mare he traded for a retablo of Christ and a ten-dollar bill.
Among the pieces are two “over 90 percent true” stories: “My Pardner,” in which Max writes about a one-eyed cowboy named Boggs and a cross-country horse drive they made, and “The Mare,” a chronicle of the harsh life of a wild horse that survives attacks by cougars and coyotes, wild fires and hard winters.
Of Blackie he said, “Yeah, that is right, it was a horse that started it all—the stories, the books, the movies, the paintings, and he came close to ending it for me, as well.”
In another piece he writes, “I reckon just about every human in the world that was raised on a cow ranch, worked as a cowboy, or just plain rode for pleasure knew and loved a horse like Old Snip.”
And he adds in yet another, “Flax was as beautiful as a Taos sunset in deep summer, as faithful as your grandmother, as smart as a border collie, and his dark-as-shoe-polish eyes shined with intelligence.”
Artist as well as author, one of Ol’ Max’s early paintings, “The Family” adorns the cover of this collection of horse stories. Inside there are photographs of the horses about which he writes; others of him working on a variety of ranches. There are photos of other cowboys and their horses including J.P.S. Brown and his first horse Pancho, Slim Pickens and Max with their stagecoach horses in the Sam Peckinpah film, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, and Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda with their nemesis, Old Fooler, from the film The Rounders, which was based on a novel by Ol’ Max.
Also included are several of Max’s early horse paintings and mixed media drawings. My criticism of the book is that the University of New Mexico Press did not kick loose some money and publish this art in color.
LEVY, BUDDY. American Legend; The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett. Berkley Books, paperback, $15. ISBN 978-0-425-21008-1.
Although old Davy expired at the Alamo that long ago day in March, 1836—we won’t get into how he died, a thorny issue that has been argued among historians and writers for many years—it appears unlikely that the legendary Tennessean’s fame and reputation will ever by laid to rest. Books about Crockett are legion and one would think that little remains about his life that hasn’t been already thoroughly investigated and documented. Yet, here we have another volume, this one by Buddy Levy, an adventure sports and lifestyles journalist and an assistant clinical professor of English at Washington State University.
Levy does a good job of placing Crockett’s life and adventures in context with the emerging world about him and the multifaceted issues that were already making themselves felt across the United States. From his birth in present-day East Tennessee, to his participation in the Creek War, his election to the U. S. House of Representatives, and his eventual political break with Andrew Jackson, Crockett’s mission to Texas and immortality followed a complex and twisted path.
Levy’s book is a welcome addition to the existing Crockett literature and should be well-received by those with an interest in Crockett, himself, or the period of American history in which he lived.
LOWE, SAM. Arizona Curiosities, 2nd Edition. Insider’s Guide, Globe Pequot Publishing, paperback, 298 pps., $14.95. ISBN 978-0-7627-4114-4.
Subtitled “Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff” the second edition of Arizona Curiosities definitely dishes a portion of all of the above.
Let’s see, according to this book Arizona has a number of buildings shaped like flying saucers. You’ll find a totem pole in Strawberry, a giant-sized chair in Pinetop, a rock that resembles—and has been painted to look like—a frog near Congress, and a giant tiki head along Route 66 near Kingman.
Most of all, you can read about the fun, quirky, curious characters who’ve called Arizona home over the years. There are stories of women who wore copper dresses, gangster John Dillinger, Mexican bandit Pancho Villa, and of course no book about Arizona would be complete without at least something related to Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday.
But one of the real treasures is the story of Jim Cook from Wickenburg, the “Official State Liar of Arizona.’” No joke. Cook is quoted as saying, “I’m happily married, don’t drink, and I’m a recovering journalist so there’s no reason to lie anymore.” He adds “I read somewhere that the average person tells more than 200 lies a day. I’m down to one or two a day, but when I tell one, it’s a good one.”
I’m not about to tell you the lies Jim Cook shares in Arizona Curiosities, you need to find a copy of this book and read them for yourself.
The old general stores of the West are disappearing, but fortunately the one in Skull Valley continues to serve residents and tourists who create their own “discordant kind of music” as they walk on old, squeaky wooden floors. In a way this book is like settling down by the cracker barrel in such a general store and hearing the old-timers share their tales. It’s funny, relaxing, insightful, and, well, quirky.
MARGO, ADAIR and LEANNE HEDRICK, Eds. Jose Cisneros: Immigrant Artist. Texas Western Press, hardcover, 108 pps., $24.95. ISBN 0-87404-286-0.
Artist-illustrator Jose Cisneros was born in Mexico in 1910, the year of the Great Revolution in that country, moved with his family to Ciudad Juarez in 1925, and immigrated to El Paso in 1939 where he studied and worked and in 1948 became an American citizen.
Immigrant Artist is a loving tribute to Cisneros’s pilgrimage from his home village of Villa Ocampo, Durango, to his position as dean of Southwestern artists and one of the most beloved of Texans. The book is filled with rare photographs of Don Jose’s family and friends and early examples of his art. The narrative, "an intimate conversation" elicited expertly by the editors, is the artist’s own words of his life and especially of the tortuously slow climb up the ladder to artistic eminence.
Literally hundreds of Cisneros's classic pen-and-ink works – especially of the horsemen of the American Southwest and Mexico – have illustrated books, magazines, and newspapers, as well as the walls of homes, offices and museums throughout the West.
This is a lovingly conceived and beautifully produced tribute to the man who earned WWA’s Owen Wister Award in 1997.
MONAHAN, SHERRY. Tombstone’s Treasures: Silver Mines and Golden Saloons. University of New Mexico Press, trade paperback, 199 pps., $16.95. ISBN 978-0-8263-4176-1.
The silver mines and saloons that helped create Tombstone, Arizona Territory, receive their due in Sherry Monahan’s latest book. “It is both shocking and enlightening to learn just how sophisticated Tombstone really was when the Earps, Doc Holliday, Johnny Ringo, and Curly Bill strode the boardwalks,” writes Bob Boze Bell in the introduction. As Monahan clearly points out it was a city with telephones, ice cream parlors, a bowling alley, swimming pool, and coffee shops. With maps, illustrations, end notes, and an index, this book provides rich fodder for anyone interested in Tombstone’s early days, and it is of particular value to fiction writers who can absorb the little details that made a real Western town.
Monahan has written other books about Tombstone and this volume is another good one for your shelf, particularly if you are interested in the rest of the story beyond a 26-second gunfight.
PALACIOS, RICARDO D. Tío Cowboy: Juan Salinas, Rodeo Roper and Horseman. Texas A&M University Press, hardcover, 216 pps. No price given. ISBN 1-585-44527-4.
Every now and then a book comes along that serves multiple purposes. Tío Cowboy is such a volume. Simultaneously a biography of Juan Salinas, the first Mexican-American to compete in professional rodeo, it is also a memoir of the Salinas family (of which the author is a member), a history of Tejano culture in the brush country of Texas and an examination of the demise of the traditional ranching culture of the great Southwest.
First-time author Palacios brings us a moving depiction of how his Tío (Spanish for "uncle") Juan and his Tío Tony stormed onto the rodeo scene in 1936, bringing along with them the future rodeo champion Toots Mansfield. For ten years the Salinas brothers dominated calf roping, and the book makes it clear that neither man suffered racism. Palacios credits the inherent equality found in the cowboy tradition as the reason that these Tejano ropers were welcomed into the pantheon of the rodeo world as equals and as respected competitors.
Filled with stories of Salinas' successes as a rodeo competitor, Tío Cowboy is also a candid and moving portrait of his Tío Juan's fifty-year romance with his wife, Bertha. Their final goodbye at Bertha's deathbed is shattering. Lastly, Palacios details his tenure as Salinas' caregiver during the final decade of the rodeo champ's life, when the octogenarian dispensed his wisdom and recounted the details of his life to Palacios.
Tío Cowboy is a marvel of a book, and it brings resonance and depth to our understanding of the Tejano people, and of the wondrous life of Juan Salinas. Palacios and Texas A&M University Press have enriched our knowledge of Texas—and rodeo—history, and deserve high praise for this excellent book.
PRITCHETT, LAURA, RICHARD L. KNIGHT and JEFF LEE, editors.
Home Land: Ranching and a West That Works. Johnson Books, trade paperback, 213 pps., $17.95. ISBN 1-55566-4008.
Sharon Salisbury O’Toole, a fourth-generation rancher from Savery, Wyoming, weaves into her poetry the passion of more than a century her family has spent on the land and the peril to her way of life from the ongoing and escalating oil and gas development. In “Atlantic Rim: The Seekers’ Trail” she captures the essence of her homeland as she joins a host of other ranchers, former ranchers, plains daughters and sons in writing about ranching in the American West.
Poetry by Drum Hadley, Paul Zarzyski, Wallace McRae and James Galvin plus essays by Rick Bass, Linda Hussa, Page Lambert, Diane Josephy Peavey, Mark Spragg, and others evoke a sense of place and life in New Mexico, Wyoming, Texas, Kansas, Nevada, and across the West.
Teresa Jordan writes in the book’s introduction: “However serene the West seems from space, it is rife with conflict on the ground.” This book is recognition of that very conflict and the ways that it is being bridged by ranchers, farmers, those who make their living from the land, and conservationists who seek to preserve open space and environmental diversity. In many cases these two conflicting positions are held by the same individuals. Proceeds from sales of this book go to the Colorado Cattleman’s Agricultural Land Trust, an organization dedicated to preserving open space and ranches.
RECKO, COREY. Murder on the White Sands: The Disappearance of Albert and Henry Fountain. University of North Texas Press, hardcover, 256 pps., $24.95. ISBN 978-1-57441-224-6.
In the Masonic Cemetery in Las Cruces, New Mexico, is a cenotaph thus inscribed: "In Memory of Albert J. Fountain and Son Henry, Who Disappeared, Feb. 1, 1896."
"Disappeared"? That is exactly what happened to the distinguished legislator and his nine-year-old son as they bumped along in a buckboard over the fringes of the White Sands—that immense, blinding-white sea of gypsum in southeastern New Mexico—toward their home in Las Cruces. There were scattered clues, a world of speculation, even a trial of supposed culprits, but one fact haunts the Southwest to this day: No trace of father or son was ever found.
That the case remains unsolved and probably unsolvable is no hindrance to recounting it and Corey Recko has done an admirable job in marshaling and arranging the Fountain data and has made an interesting, even useful, narrative of the story.
Fountain, born in New York in 1938, served in the Civil War in the West, rising from private to colonel in the First California Infantry Volunteers. After the war he settled in New Mexico Territory, establishing a law practice and attaining some local fame (in 1881) as defense attorney for William "Billy the Kid" Bonney when the outlaw was tried for murder in a makeshift courtroom in the Rio Grande hamlet of La Mesilla.
Fountain’s rise in New Mexico politics, his attacks on corruption in Santa Fe, and his war against organized cattle rustling in the Territory attracted enemies, among them the lawyer-politician Albert Bacon Fall, as fierce a Democrat as Fountain was a Republican, and a number of ranchmen suspected as cattle rustlers.
The murders occurred as Fountain and his son where returning to Las Cruces from the town of Lincoln where the "Colonel," as he liked to be called, had presented to a grand jury evidence that resulted in indictments for crimes against members of the stock association he was representing. Named in several of the indictments, for "larceny of cattle" and "defacing brands," were ranchman Oliver Lee and two of his cowboys, James R. Gililland and William H. McNew. These are the men, with Albert Fall as co-conspirator, believed to have killed Fountain (and, as collateral damage, his son) in the White Sands that February day in 1896.
Author Recko gives an excellent account of the shamefully loaded "trial" of Lee and Gililland in May, 1899, in which Albert Fall defended the men. (After eighteen days of testimony, the jury took eight minutes to return a verdict of not guilty for both defendants.)
REID, STUART. The Secret War for Texas. Texas A&M University Press, hardcover, 235 pps., $29.95. ISBN 978-1-58544-565-3.
Stuart Reid is the "three-times-great-grandson" of the subject of this remarkable book, the Scottish physician and Texas revolutionary, James Grant. Born in Ross-shire, Scotland in 1793, Grant came to Texas in 1823 and settled in Parras, Coahuila y Texas. He served the Mexican state’s legislature until 1835 when, with the rise of dictator and generalissimo Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, he fled to Nacogdoches and began his revolutionary activities in concert with such Texians as Thomas J. Rusk and James Bowie.
In 1836, Grant and his followers crossed the Rio Grande at Matamoros with the intent of establishing a new state within Mexico, a thwarted effort that, some said, weakened the defenses of the Alamo at San Antonio de Bexar by draining it of men, ammunition and supplies.
Grant was killed in the battle of Agua Dulce Creek, below Matamoros, on March 2, 1836, together with fifteen other would-be filibusteros.
Reid’s intense research into his forebear’s life reveals some startling speculation that Grant was more than a wanderer, land speculator, and adventurer. England had an intense interest in the outcome of the Texas revolution "problem" and American expansionism—what became known as the country’s "manifest destiny"—in general.
The Secret War for Texas is narrative scholarship at its best.
SCHERNECKAU, AUGUST, edited by James E. Potter and Edith Robbins. Marching With The First Nebraska, A Civil War Diary, University of Oklahoma Press, hardcover, 335 pps., notes, bibliography, index, $34.95. ISBN 0-80613-808-4.
A Civil War diary written in German? That’s right. August Scherneckau immigrated to America in 1857 and in July of 1858 he joined German settlers who were establishing the frontier town of Grand Island, Nebraska Territory. August joined the First Nebraska Volunteer Infantry, November 1, 1862. The First Nebraska mustered in at Omaha in June 1861 and had already seen action most notably during the battle of Shiloh.
Civil War scholars estimate that as many as 450,000 Germans fought for the Union during the Civil War. The German population of Missouri was against slavery and they were one of the prime reasons why that state did not secede from the Union.
August began keeping a detailed journal as soon as he joined the army. It describes the life of a soldier from fleas, to heat and cold, to sickness, and includes the good times and camaraderie. August did not fight in any major battles, but he does show what daily life was like. Anyone who has kept a journal knows how hard it is too keep writing under the best of conditions, and August did a great job even though when things became fast and furious he had to provide summaries instead of detailed day-by-day accounts. August would complete portions of his journal and then send them home to his friends in Grand Island. Unfortunately, one portion of the journal is missing as it was in his haversack that was stolen in St. Louis; but fortunately, for us, most of the journal is intact.
August describes chasing the rebels in Missouri and Arkansas, and provost guard actions in St. Louis. In November 1863, the government changed the First Nebraska from infantry to cavalry. August records capturing their new wild mounts, and learning how to saddle and ride them. He delights in being a cavalryman, “Cavalry is the weapon for me!”
But he also provides detail into the hardships of the trail. January 1, 1864, August wrote, “The weather has changed; it rained terribly as I had to go on picket duty. Furthermore, it got cold during the night, and the rain changed to snow. Soaked and cold, everything froze solidly—coats, saddle and harness, the boots on your feet.” March 31, 1864, a fellow soldier with the First Nebraska accidentally shot August in the leg. He rejoined the First Nebraska as the government transferred the men to Nebraska’s frontier to guard against Cheyenne and Lakota attacks. The only disappointment with the diary is that August did not keep as detailed notes during this period as he did while marching and fighting against the rebels.
Edith Robbins, born in Germany and current resident of Nebraska, translated August’s journal into English. James Potter, Senior Research Historian with Nebraska State Historical Society, edited and provided extensive footnotes to clarify terms and events, and identify people and places. Marching with the First Nebraska is enjoyable primary material for anyone interested in the life of the Union soldier during the Civil War in the West.
SPELLMAN, PAUL N. Captain J.A. Brooks, Texas Ranger. University of North Texas Press, hardcover, 272 pps. No price given. ISBN-13: 978-1-57441-227-7.
This is another of the growing number of biographies of individual Texas Rangers, giving us a close up look at the character of the men who enforced the law on a lawless frontier. James Abijah Brooks was born in 1855 in Bourbon County, Kentucky. He left home and arrived in Texas in 1877, where he worked cattle for a time, including a trail drive to Kansas. In 1880, he moved to San Antonio and tried his hand at a number of businesses without success. He joined Texas Rangers, Company F, at Cotulla on January 15, 1883. He would serve the state as a Ranger until he retired as captain of Company A in November of 1906. His service, mostly in South Texas and the oil boom towns, saw him involved in the usual range of frontier crimes, a number of shoot outs and the frustrations of seeing the men he had arrested released by the courts. One of his assignments was in preventing the illegal world championship prizefight between "Gentleman" Jim Corbett and Robert "Ruby Rob" Fitzsimmons in 1896. (The fight did take place between Fitzsimmons and Peter Maher--Corbett had backed out--on a tiny island in the Rio Grande at Langtry.)
Brooks served honorably, often at the expense of his neglected family and despite a drinking problem. Following his retirement from the Rangers, he served as County Judge for 28 years in Brooks County, which was named for him while he served as a representative in the Texas Legislature. He died peacefully in his bed in 1944 and is buried in the Falfurrias Cemetery. The book is well written and well illustrated.
WOERNER, GAIL HUGHBANKS. Rope to Win: The History of Steer, Calf, and Team Roping. Eakin Press, paperback, 278 pps. No price given. ISBN 097-891-502-X.
From its genesis on ranches in the West, to today’s high tech sport, roping has been a mainstay for cowboys and Gail Hughbanks Woerner takes you into their world of work and competition in Rope to Win.
As the author notes, “A simple piece of rope has been the catalyst for cowboys on horseback to lose sight of everything else, forget their responsibilities, and even ‘go a little crazy.’ It starts out as a simple chore, ‘Hey, go rope that sick cow.’ And before you know it there is another cowboy who thinks he can rope faster and better than everyone else. That brings on a challenge and in no time those cowboys are practicing their roping night and day.”
In addition to details about the sport and its evolution, she highlights some of the top competitors from cowgirls like Lucille Mulhall and Mabel Strickland, to Roy Cooper, Phil Lyne, Cody Ohl, Trevor Brazile, and Jerry Long.
With chapters separated by decades: “The Rip-Roarin’ Twenties,” “The Dirty Thirties,” “The Forties—War & Rationing” and more, you can easily learn about the techniques and competitors for a particular era, including details about top rodeos. Extensive appendices include lists of champion all-around cowboys, champion steer, calf and team ropers, honorees of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum Rodeo Hall of Fame and of the ProRodeo Hall of Fame, as well as PRCA records.
BOOK NOTES: NONFICTION
KANE, JIM. Western Movie Wit & Wisdom. Bright Sky Press, hardcover, 257 pps, $19.95. ISBN 978-1-931721-97-4.
Lovers of Western movies, and those who like to play trivia games, or impress their friends in a bar, will want a copy of this book, which has more than 2,000 quotations all taken from Western movies. Organized in alphabetical categories—from Ability, “We all got things we can’t do and things we can,” Joshua Cabe played by Dan Dailey in The Daughters of Joshua Cabe Return; to Zorro, “Zorro has been dead these many years. But the spirit of Zorro will never die.” James Vega/Zorro played by John Carroll in Zorro Rides Again. There is even an afterword: “And that’s the way it really happened, give or take a lie or two” epilogue in Sunset.
KENNEDY, DORIS. Fun with the Family: Colorado. Insider’s Guide, paperback, 228 pps., $13.95. ISBN 978-0-7627-4393-3.
This handy guide provides information on hundreds of family-oriented activities in the state of Colorado. Dividing the state into regions, it offers generalized maps, an easy to use key, an attractions index, and recommendations on family-friendly restaurants and lodging. The author also offers her picks on the best attractions in each region.
BOOK NOTES: FICTION
BRAND, MAX. Melody and Cordoba. Five Star, an imprint of Thompson Gale, hardcover, 278 pps., $25.95. ISBN 1-59414-561-X.
The adventures of Lew Melody, who loves to court danger and who has earned a reputation for boldness and daring, are narrated in three related short novels colleted here for the first time in book form. “The Black Signal,” “Lew and Slim,” and “In the River Bottom’s Grip,” all appeared originally in 1925.
COOK, WILL, edited by Bill Pronizini. Blood Sky: Western Stories. Five Star, an imprint of Thompson Gale, hardcover, 206 pps., $25.95. ISBN 1-59414-403-6.
This collection includes several stories published in the 1950s including “Blood Sky,” “The Contest,” “Wildcat on the Prod,” “Let’s All Go Kill the Scared Old man,” “The Fight at Renegade Basin” and “Bell’s Station,” which was originally published under the title “Three for the Six-Gun Stage.” Also included is “The Far-Travelin’ Man” published here for the first time.
DAWSON, PETER. Troublesome Range. Five Star, hardcover, 265 pps., $25.95. ISBN 1-59414-564-3.
Stir together cattle, land, water, and greedy men. Add an unwelcome prodigal son, Joe Bonnyman, who returns to face fire, brimstone, and the girl he left behind. This mixture can only brew trouble.
Seeing the welcome mat singed, Joe hops the first train out of Lodgepole and heads to Anywhere Else, U.S.A., only to realize a few hours into the trip he’s dog tired of running and abandons the rails. Trouble is, in those scant few hours between all aboard and hoofing it back to town, the older brother of the girl left behind has been murdered, and the single piece of evidence screams that Joe is responsible.
Originally published in a Western-themed magazine in 1941, this timeless Western pushes the turn of the century when land and cattle were king—where a bullet would only slow up the hero a few days. It is a little far fetched with injuries throughout the story. But hey, a hero can survive anything with the right girl at his side—if he can find her in time.
EVANS, MAX. Bluefeather Fellini. University of New Mexico Press., paperback, 676 pps., $21.95. ISBN 978-0-8263-4260-7.
For the first time, Bluefeather Fellini and Bluefeather Fellini in the Sacred Realm, are available in one book. When published in 1993 and 1994, the two novels gained praise for their sense of place and spiritual underpinnings.
FLYNN, T.T. Gunsmoke. Five Star, an imprint of Thompson Gale, hardcover, 208, pps., $25.95. ISBN 1-59414-559-8.
These four Western stories, “Dead Man Deputy,” “Lodeville,” “Shadow,” and “The Trail to Monterey,” were all first published in the 1920s.
HOLMES, L.P.. Roaring Acres. Five Star, hardcover, 212 pps., $25.95. ISBN 1-59414-626-8.
When a land rush opens up the Gallatin Basin to homesteaders, Dave Salkeld and some of his crew are planning to stake out new grazing territory for the Flying Diamond. But Luke Converse of the Cross C wants grass as well, and his tactics soon have the other settlers up in arms against the cattlemen. Salkeld also runs afoul of a family of trashy no-goods when he comes to the aid of fellow settler Jim Abbot and his pretty daughter Madie. The Abbots are under the unwelcome protection of gunman Lon Estes, who resents Dave’s deepening friendship with Madie. As tensions in the fledgling community grow, Salkeld and the boys from the Flying Diamond must prove that they are not behind a number of murderous raids against the settlers while protecting themselves from attack by the outlaws and the Cross C.
First appearing in West Magazine in 1941, this novel offers up plenty of classic Western action from a Spur Award winning author.
PATTEN, LEWIS B. Shadow of the Gun. Five Star, hardcover, 196 pps., $25.95. ISBN 1-59414-563-6.
This is a 2fer. That is to say two stories in one book; both are reprints from a Western-themed magazine circa 1954.
In “The Killing,” the philanderer is dead and the murderer, who is caught with the smoking gun, will enjoy a quick necktie party immediately following a mock trial. Whoa! Hold the verdict! The wife of the accused was caught in the arms of the newly deceased.
In this non-PC era, the unwritten law demands a husband avenge improper advances toward his wife—even if the tryst was her idea. The husband’s relief at evading the gallows is short lived when land grabbers concoct a scheme to help themselves to both the philanderer’s and the avenging husband’s land. One tiny problem—the husband has to die!
More not so smart land grabbers appear in “Shadow of the Gun.” The grammar and lack of sufficient pronouns make these stories a bit of a challenge at times. Although if you like fist fights, gunplay, and the traditional Westerns of the 1950s, this set of reprints is for you.
SAVAGE, LES JR. Wolves of the Sundown Trail. Five Star, an imprint of Thompson Gale, hardcover, 186, pps., $25.95. ISBN 1-59414-510-5.
The three stories in this book are “The Lash of Senorita Scorpion,” “Buckskin Border,” and “Wolves of the Sundown Trail,” all of which were initially published in the 1940s.