BACKTRAILS

December 2009
Ross Morton
Faith and a Fast Gun
Sex and Violence
Gold robbery mystery
September 2009
Steve Hayes
BHE Books
Paul Lederer
Accurate words
June 2009
Jack Martin
Series Heroes
Riding the Range
March 2009
Blast to Oblivion
Tyler Hatch and Twins
Night Herding
Walt Masterson
December 2008
All Guns Blazing
Jim Bowden & Co.
Revolver Conversions
September 2008
Western Noir
Power of the Premise
West on Wheels
June 2008
Plot or Not Debate
Jack Giles
Whitney Revolver
March 2008
Walt Masterson
Plotters and Pantsers
More Horse Talk
December 2007
Peace at Any Price
Dan Claymaker
Horse Sense
September 2007
Artist Michael Thomas
Judging by Covers
The Schofield Revolver
June 2007
David Whitehead
Realistic Ballistics
Plot Twists
March 2007
Crime/western fiction
The Walker Colt
Sydney J. Bounds
December 2006
Lauran Paine
Jake Douglas & Co.
September 2006
Misfit Lil
Greg Mitchell
June 2006
Marshall Grover
Facts for Fiction
March 2006
Jeff Sadler
Mike Stotter
Writers and Money

OTHER WAGONS

Robert Hale Limited
Authors & Books Blog
Black Horse Express
Adam Wright
Ben Bridges
Neil Hunter
Clay More
Piccadilly Cowboys
Jack Giles
Gillian F. Taylor
Ross Morton
C. S. Harris
Walt Masterson
Mystery File
Western Fi Review
Western Sensibility
The Tainted Archive
Jack Martin
World of Words
BH Western excerpt

BHE: "Larger than life" takes care of the truly fictional side of your aims, but we know you won't be ignoring reality. Can you tell the readers what your plans are there?

Gary: Over time I’d like to see Ark involved in many of the iconic moments in western history – the Indian wars are just one obvious scenario. Mind you, I’ve got plans for Ark to be in a town called Tombstone on an October night in 1881. I think that particular legend would be a great one to play around with – try and create a story that runs on the sidelines of the actual historic events. The fictional story must enhance the actual events and make perfect sense. That’s the main difference I think between reality and fiction – fiction must make sense while reality often doesn’t.

BHE: Knowing the Hale resistance to Indian wars stories, please fill us in on how that idea will work.

Gary: I have some kind of loose story arc worked out for the Arkansas character. I'm fitting him into an aspect of the Indian wars for the next book. Arkansas' feelings towards the Indians at first will mirror those of Ethan Edwards in The Searchers. They are very, what we would now term racist, but that doesn't make him a bad man. He is of his time – and after the first book readers will understand Ark's hatred of the Indians.  However, through the developing story he will find a dignity in the Indians and grow to respect them. Throughout the books, I intend to have a recurring Indian character who will be introduced in the next book – but there is something mystic about this Indian. I'm not sure who he is, but he's being birthed in my subconscious at the moment. I can feel him there. And he will be introduced in the second Ark book.

BHE: To return, then, to the other iconic moments: what is the story there?

Gary: Another thing that appeals to me with the series character is the possibility of having him meet all these real-life western characters from book to book – people like Wyatt Earp and Calamity Jane – which is why I've kept the time period of the first Ark book very vague. Of course, the danger with this sort of thing is to over-egg the pudding. So it's not like historical folk will be popping up willy-nilly, but when they do it will make perfect sense, I hope. I want Ark's universe to be one that could have existed alongside the real West.

The author name M. M. Rowan makes an unexpected return to the BHW list in April. Between the Winds is understood to be the first western with the Rowan byline since 1991. The earliest, No Long Farewell, appeared in 1985. It was followed by Beyond the High Mesas (1986), Absarokas (1989), The Powder River Raid (1988) and Singing Wind Rise (1991). Fellow author David Whitehead told Hoofprints in answer to an inquiry, "I was very surprised to hear M. M. Rowan has a new BHW, especially after so many years. I'll watch out for it with interest! Unfortunately I don't have any more information on her than what appeared in Twentieth Century Western Writers. I did have some personal correspondence with her but I cleared all that out years ago. A charming educator from Glasgow, Marie Rowan's writing frequently explored the relationships between ordinary pioneer stock, and her plots were distinguished by unexpected twists and a largely unglamorous view of the West. On average, Rowan took between 12 and 15 months to write a book, but in 1990 confided to me that she hoped to write faster in future. After Singing Wind Rise, however, she vanished from the scene altogether." From its blurb, the new book runs true to Rowan form. It begins: "Kaid McEntyre hates his father with a vengeance and blames him for the life of drudgery the whole family has endured. Nevertheless, when his father is beaten half to death in Flat-Stone Creek, Kaid decides that he deserves some kind of justice...."
 

 

Paramount Pictures has acquired Chad St John’s action adventure "spec" screenplay The Further Adventures of Doc Holliday. St John is currently one of the hottest screenwriters in Hollywood and had two screenplays on the 2009 "Black List", a listing of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood. He has also developed screenplays for the film adaptation of the Ronin and Sergeant Rock comic books. Paramount and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura were keeping the details of the Doc Holliday project tightly under wraps. Showbiz paper Variety described it “a history-based action adventure tale in the vein of Pirates of the Caribbean. Doc Holliday, best remembered for his friendship with Wyatt Earp and the Gunfight at the OK Corral, has featured in many big screen feature films, including Howard Hughes’ 1943 film The Outlaw and John Ford’s 1946 classic My Darling Clementine. He was portrayed by Val Kilmer in Tombstone (1993) and Dennis Quaid in Wyatt Earp (1994).

Looking for music to read (or write) westerns by? Peter Joelson, of Audiophile Audition, recommends a Membran CD release, Great Western Themes. The track list is: The Big Country, High Noon, Bonanza, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Magnificent Seven, Once Upon a Time in the West, Blazing Saddles, For a Few Dollars More, A Fistful of Dollars, Rawhide, The Green Leaves of Summer and Gunfight at the OK Corral. "Mike Townend is responsible for these excellent arrangements for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to evoke the sweat, dust and heat of the somewhat out-of-fashion western movie, and the results remain entirely in keeping with the originals. Those expecting music for westerns in the style of Elgar will be sorely disappointed, or considerably relieved." The orchestra is conducted by former New Yorker Carl Davis. "Most notable are the touching cor anglais solos, and the authentic-sounding parts for guitar and percussion which left a smile on my face." The remastered recordings date from the mid-1990s.

Here's more about Arthur Kent, author of the December BHW The Kansas Fast Gun, mentioned in Hoofprints last time. Bibliographer Steve Holland writes: "I've spoken to Arthur on a couple of occasions but not for many years. He was born in Stoke Newington in 1925 and educated at City Literary Institute in London. He worked as the night editor on the Daily Express in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, having gained journalistic experience as editorial assistant on the News Chronicle and as a feature writer for the Australian Daily Mirror, which you've already noted. Published his first novel in 1953, written in quiet moments on the news desk. It was a gangster thriller which he sold to Curtis Warren who published it under one of their house names. He wrote a handful of other titles for Curtis before they went bust and he switched to Panther Books, which is probably where he first came into contact with editor Bill Baker, for whom he was to later write six Sexton Blake yarns. Panther Books published his bestseller The Camp on Blood Island, a novelization of the movie which sold out and went through a number of editions, much to Arthur's displeasure. He had received a flat fee, shared with his co-author Gordon Thomas, and wasn't paid a penny extra when the book became a hit.... I'm rather pleased to see his westerns getting a second outing. Hopefully there will be a royalty or payment of some description."  And for those who have asked about the stunning Sexton Blake cover Hoofprints ran, this was the work of Ferdinando Carcupino, born in Milan in 1923 and well respected in Italy, drawing everything from comics and cartoons to colour covers and glamour pin-ups. He died in 2003.

Keith Hetherington (aka Jake Douglas, Rick Dalmas and others) found much to enjoy in the last BH Extra. "The piece about the truncated text in Faith and a Fast Gun [January] was spot-on. The author [Chap O'Keefe] had a reason for 'spelling it out'. And I might add that these days there's not  always a lot of subtlety with the readers. 'In your face' is necessary to get your point across to some; as an integral part of the story, pointing up the subsequent actions of the character, it's needed! There was not much cut, but it was an important not much. However, the publisher said it all: You can write what you like, but we are equally free to delete what we don't like. You can't argue with that, but I find the morals issue a little out of kilter. Candice Proctor in her article about gratuitous sex and violence summed it up well: if it doesn't do something to move the story along, then scrap it. If it does, leave it alone. I recall working for [TV company] Crawfords when there had been complaints about violence and too many spectacular car crashes. The boss addressed a meeting of writers and said, very reasonably and succinctly, 'Action does not necessarily mean violence. It is something that helps with the story's development, which can be conflict between two characters or, equally, simply a kiss. As long as it's meaningful, tells the viewer something, prepares him for a forthcoming development, perhaps previously unsuspected....' I've always remembered it and tried to apply it in my own work."

 

Every Saturday, writer Robert Silva contributes a westerns column for AMC TV's movie blogs. One entry has been "And the Hero Rides Off Into the Sunset and Eight Other Western Clichés". Silva wrote, "Westerns have always incorporated traditional elements more than other genres do. But as time's gone on, some characteristics have calcified into clichés. Look no further than Blazing Saddles for a wonderful spoof of all the outworn cowboy hokum." He then listed as his eight clichés besides Riding Off Into the Sunset: Evil Ranchers; Saloon Brawls; Spineless Townspeople; the Evil Sheriff; the Heroic, Mysterious Loner; Savage, Noble, Spineless, Illiterate Injuns; Colour-co-ordinated Villainy ("look for the guy decked out in black") and the Duel to End It All. On the last cliché, Silva commented, "Sergio's Leone's movies went wild with the concept – complete with at least one ten-minute long showdown.... But of all Western clichés here, this is the one that won't go away – and that few Westerns can do without."

Nik Morton (aka BHW writer Ross Morton) reports that his World War II French Resistance story Codename Gaby has won the Book Awards short story competition for 2010. It can be read here. The site says, "The Book Awards have attracted thousands of votes since they were first announced in 2008. These awards are voted for by ordinary readers, not a closed panel, and so are truly open to any author who has a body of satisfied customers willing to support their nomination." Nik's  tale was originally slanted at another competition that required the story to begin with the words "Missed it!" He says, "What was missed and by whom was up to me. I didn’t get placed in the competition and the story gathered dust; but I was drawn back to it frequently, knowing it could be improved. Two years later, a rewritten version has won the Book Awards competition. The point of all this is, never give up on a piece. That original idea just might need to germinate and could later bring you success. That applies to any genre fiction you want to write. As I tell the members of my writers’ circle, the more you write, the better you become at writing. Indeed, we can always improve, no matter how many books we have had published. Keep writing!" Nik has also just edited A Fistful of Legends (Express Westerns), 21 new tales of the Old West from BHW authors and some newcomers. And Nik's second novel about psychic spy Tana Standish, The Tehran Transmission, set in Iran in 1978, is out now.

The US Postal Service announced in Washington that Cowboys of the Silver Screen are among the subjects headlining its 2010 stamp programme. Watch your mail for appearances by William S. Hart, Tom Mix, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. The stamps go on sale in mid April. "The service honours four extraordinary performers who helped make the American Western a popular form of entertainment. Film stars from the silent era through the singing era are featured on the stamps." The portraits for all four stamps are by artist Robert Rodriguez. The notes on the Hart stamp say, "William S. Hart (1864-1946) brought a powerful presence and serious approach to early westerns. Tall and trim, with acting skills honed by years of experience on the New York stage and in productions across the country, Hart became one of the most popular leading men of the silent film era. In his movies, the actor insisted on authentic depictions of the Old West and its people, from their clothes to their lifestyles and complex personalities. He frequently played the stalwart, tough-as-nails cowboy, and his favourite horse was a brown and white pinto named Fritz."

At the end of January Gary Dobbs (aka Jack Martin) ran a BHW themed weekend at his Tainted Archive blog with contributions from Hale publicist Nikki Edwards and authors Lance Howard, Clay More, Ross Morton, I. J. Parnham, Chuck Tyrell and David Whitehead. A standout feature was a complete Blackbow comic strip, resurrected from the 1967 annual of Britain's legendary Eagle, published when Gary was just two years old! The scriptwriter was Keith Chapman, at the time of the item's origin in the early years of a professional writing and editing career that had begun in his teens. Today Keith is best known as BHW author Chap O'Keefe. For an earlier themed weekend, based around the Saint books, films and TV series, Keith had supplied a vintage Saint comic script. Gary said, "The Archive's cooking now.... The most hit upon section of the Saint weekend was the digital publishing debut of the long-lost comic strip. It has been downloaded over a hundred times and still receives readers week after week." Gary's bumper BHW weekend can also still be visited and consists of more than a hundred posts, comprising new and recycled material plus reviews of recent BHWs that have appeared elsewhere online, such as in Steve Myall's Western Fiction Review and Evan Lewis's Davy Crockett's Almanack.

Paddy Gallagher (aka Greg Mitchell) follows up his article in the last BHE about Frank Gardiner: "The other day I read of a new book claiming that Thunderbolt (real name Fred Ward), probably Australia's most popular bushranger, was not killed by Constable Walker at Kentucky Creek in 1870. It is now claimed the man positively identified and photographed was not Fred but his uncle, and the police knew they had the wrong man but covered up the deception. The story gets wilder. It was claimed the real Thunderbolt went to America and teamed up with Frank Gardiner. They would have made a hell of a team but, as far as is known, Gardiner lived a respectable life in San Francisco and stayed on the straight and narrow. The story reads like fiction but it isn't the first claim that Thunderbolt really escaped. People don't like letting go of folk heroes or popular villains.When I was a kid, there were many ancient characters about who were claimed to be Dan Kelly, youngest brother of Ned. It now seems Thunderbolt has joined Jesse James and Butch Cassidy and even Elvis in the Never Really Dead Club."

Paddy Gallagher also tells us, "I was surprised to see Flipkart, an online Indian bookseller, selling BHW, Linford and Dales editions of some of my books. They were advertised as imported editions, so weren't pirated. I knew there was a small interest in westerns in India. I once saw a very bizarre western made in that country but have no idea of the size of the market. Given India's huge population, even a tiny percentage of western readers would probably account for the entire output of all three companies." With rights being held on a world basis, Paddy thinks the small output of BHWs can barely be meeting any global commitment. "It would be interesting to see just which countries buy these books and in what numbers. The Japanese are very fond of cowboy movies and have large English-language sections in their bookstores. It could be they are taking a few as well." Black Horse Extra draws visitors in unexpectedly large numbers from across the world – from China and Russia to the Philippines and Indonesia – or, as Paddy remarks, in places where the everyday language is not English. "Is the western genre better established than we thought? It would be interesting to know how many countries our work reaches, and whether our efforts are reaching English speakers among the general public or just going to military bases and the like. Maybe some of the readers in unusual places would like to comment." Emails from any location are always welcome at feedback@blackhorsewesterns.com .

 

BHW authors have long been told there's no place for their books in the United States. But times are a-changing in the heartland. The City of Waverly, Iowa (motto "Simply the Best"), has a fine public library with a newsletter called Check It Out! It recently ran a list under the heading: "If You Like Westerns...Try These Authors". The first column of the list began, predictably enough, with some classic names: Grey, Zane; L'Amour, Louis; Brand, Max; Raine, William McLeod. Then in the fifth position came a BHW author, O'Keefe, Chap. A quick check of the library's online catalogue showed that the library's holdings were all of the Dales large-print editions and included favourites like Sons and Gunslicks, Ghost Town Belles, Frontier Brides and Ride the Wild Country. Also featuring on the library's list were two more BHW authors, Lance Howard and Ian Parnham. Why the large-print bridgehead in the US cannot be used as a means to introduce original, standard-print, BHW editions of books by writers with international followings continues to mystify us. No audience? Visitor statistics show this website attracts six times more readers from the US than from the UK.

But like the romance, the western currently remains a much-maligned genre, even by publishers and authors who surely stand to lose every time they trot out their semi-apologetic assessments of their own offerings in it.

I was appalled late last year when it was discovered a published BHW writer – a fairly recent entrant to the stable but busy under several pen-names in the encouraged fashion – was recommending the genre at his website because its stories were of "the simple life". He presented, too, a Formula for writing BHWs, to which he attached his real name and which he also called "fiction writing for dummies". The dummies were presumably the people who aspired to writing BHWs and who would succeed once they'd adopted his by-the-numbers "recipe". To me, this sounded insulting to both the writers and, by implication, the readers for whom the books would be written.

I don't feel persuaded to read the author's books, although they are usually given some of the more attractive Hale covers and I suspect they are of a kind that would be regarded as appropriate fare for western fans by Judge Mancini.

In itself,  "formulaic" doesn't have to be a term of contempt. Every game has to be played to rules. In the decade after World War II, the writer of an advice manual for authors could say allegorically, "Tennis is played on a court of fixed size, with various squares and a net. Possibly some tennis players possess so much originality that they feel a sense of claustrophobia on such a court. Well, they can set up rules of their own, or play without rules. The crowd will continue to watch the game on the familiar court."

But I know the end of the story market to which that writing instructor was alluding has long since disappeared. Today the diminishing, discriminating crowd that will still make time for reading fiction when so much else beckons expects something extra.

I took scant comfort from the BHW novelist's intention to move on to "better" things. "Now for the good news," he said. "After writing four crime novels and having each of them kicked back, I finally got one accepted! This is important for a number of reasons: first off, crime pays better than cowboys and Indians but the main thing is with the crime I'll have my own name on the cover. Oh, one's ego explodes! ... ain't it fun?"

Given his attitude on westerns, his tongue-in-cheek (?) glee still grated.

More comfort was found in that although the writer claimed a background in journalism, he gave incorrect names for all three of the companies that have published his westerns. That, I felt, spoke volumes about his credentials.

Meanwhile, in other quarters, I'm happy to say it has been possible to continue the effort to bring out "Western Fiction for Today's Readers". Just published as the second Black Horse Extra Books title is Liberty and a Law Badge.

Like Misfit Lil Cheats the Hangrope, this is another paperback original. The intention with BHE Books is that they will be published in their convenient pocket-book format to supplement the hardback books published by Robert Hale Ltd for the British & Commonwealth public-library market. And they will offer "extra" in several ways.

For example, with Liberty and a Law Badge we have been able to use cover artwork commissioned for the story, whereas Hale and other western publishers are invariably reduced to choosing their books' illustrations from agency libraries of generic art showing men, guns, horses and landscapes. Sometimes the match works; sometimes it annoyingly doesn't.

Linford and BHW artist Michael Thomas has given us a brilliant cover picture for Liberty, enhanced by what has been applauded as the attractive BHE Books design. "A lovely-looking book" is a typical comment. Michael's illustration captures the characters from the novel graphically. The body language in the young woman's eloquent hands and the threatening sheriff's arrogant stance are most expressive.

Gratifyingly, reviews of the novel have also been approving. Two that were highly appreciated came from James Reasoner and Laurie Powers. Both these critics know their stuff when it comes to traditional westerns. James is a respected veteran in western novel-writing and a life-long follower of pulp fiction. Laurie is the grand-daughter of pulp writer Paul S. Powers, who wrote for Wild West Weekly and other now-famed pulps, often under the pen-name Ward M. Stevens.

At Rough Edges, James wrote: "Liberty and a Law Badge [is] another adventure of range detective Joshua Dillard, a former Pinkerton operative with tragedy in his past that drives him to fight outlaws of all stripes.

"[It] is the first Chap O’Keefe novel I’ve read, but it certainly won’t be the last. As the book opens, Dillard is on his way to his latest assignment, stopping a range war in Montana and finding out who has been rustling cattle from his employer’s ranch. Pretty standard stuff, you say? Well, maybe at first glance, but not by the time O'Keefe gets through throwing twist after twist into the complex plot.

"The Liberty of the title is actually a young woman who has been blackmailed into a sordid affair with a crooked sheriff, who’s the brother-in-law of the cattle baron who hired Dillard, who owns the cattle that Liberty’s husband is accused of stealing. Got that? Then there’s the cattle baron’s sister, who’s married to the crooked sheriff, and she goes on a rampage when she finds out about her husband’s adulterous affair with Liberty (said affair really being nothing more than a series of rapes). Add in a brutal deputy with an agenda of his own, and there’s a whole lot for Dillard to untangle before he can straighten everything out. Naturally, that untangling involves a number of fistfights and shootouts.

"This book is a lot of fun, pulpish but with a sharp, contemporary edge. The dark, complex plot, the emotional angst, and the gritty storytelling remind me very much of many westerns published in the fifties by Gold Medal, by authors such as Lewis B. Patten, Dean Owen and William Heuman. The pace is very fast, the action scenes are handled well, and Joshua Dillard is a very likable hero, tough and competent enough to handle just about any situation, despite his occasional self-doubts, but not a superman by any means. I’m ready to read more about him right now. . . . If you’re a fan of hardboiled action westerns, I definitely think you’ll enjoy it."

At her Wild West blog, Laurie chose to enlarge upon the more noir-ish elements, taking a very personal slant.

"Ostensibly Liberty and a Law Badge is centered around Joshua Dillard, a disgraced Pinkerton detective hired sight unseen by cattle baron Barnaby Lant to investigate rustling from Lant's Flying L Ranch. But when Dillard arrives in town, he witnesses the beating and dumping of an old man, Crazy Bob McGill. When he starts to investigate the assault, Dillard finds himself in the middle of a wasps' nest of crooked lawmen who are in cahoots with Lant.

"Dillard finds out McGill was beaten because he was witness to a horrifying scene, one that would not play well with law-abiding people. While playing Peeping Tom at Devil's Lake, McGill had discovered Sheriff Vickers, also known as 'Dirty Dan', forcing a young woman, Liberty, to have sex with him. What made it even more horrible is that Liberty is McGill's daughter, a sweet young woman who had been blackmailed to preserve her husband, spineless rancher Tom Tolliver who had been caught changing a cattle brand with a running-iron. The prolonged kidnap and rape of Liberty, not only by Vickers but by others who join him later, is at the centerpiece of this book.

"Like many people, I've never been comfortable reading scenes where sexual violence is inflicted on women, and I've been known to walk out of theatres during rape scenes. This may partly be due to the fact that I have two close friends who have been raped by strangers. I do not take the portrayal of rape in books or movies lightly, especially when the scenes are gratuitous or voyeuristic. So you can imagine how uncomfortable I felt when as I continued to read Liberty and a Law Badge, I realized that this problem between Liberty and Sheriff Vickers wasn't going to go away anytime soon.

"But what kept me going was O'Keefe's sensitive approach to the scenes and his interweaving of the oppressive lives that women had to lead in the 19th century into the book. It also helps that Dillard's focus shifts instantly from dealing with the job that he was hired to do – to investigate cattle rustling – to finding a way to rescue Liberty from her plight in the cabin at Devil's Lake. Believe me, there would have been men in the real 19th century west who would have shrugged off Vickers' dehumanization of Liberty as just being the way of the world. Dillard's determination to help Liberty as his number one priority endeared him to me forever.

"It's an action-driven novel and a page-turner that will keep you going until the very end. And the end is worth all of the discomfort you feel when reading about Liberty's helplessness: the ending is chaotic, surprising and actually pretty funny. Or maybe that's just my take on it because I love it when women who have been victimized come back and get theirs. Revenge can be so sweet."

Another reviewer with his finger firmly on the pulse of the western and modern fiction scenes is Gary Dobbs, aka Jack Martin. Gary not only reviewed the book fulsomely at his Tainted Archive, but commented at Laurie's Wild West, "This is an excellent book, but then we wouldn't expect otherwise from Keith/Chap. I'd love to see this one do well and if there's any justice it will."

Among the other "extras" that come with the BH Extra Books initiative is a freer hand for the writer. Gary, in fact, claimed at his Archive in a 2009 year-end wrap-up that the series had been launched to give me, as Chap O'Keefe, "greater creative freedom". I would modify this to say an eventual objective is to restore the freedom BH Western writers enjoyed for years.

The other day I read an entertaining John Dyson BHW published in 1996, Blood Brothers. It was loosely based on the train-robbing Dalton gang. As the blurb said, Their women were even more wild and wicked. Pearl Starr became as profligate as her notorious mother Belle. Her lover, the beautiful lesbian Eugenia Moore, used her wiles to seek the information the gang needed and then joined the boys on their raids.

The book featured under-age sex, inter-racial sex, swipes at institutional religion and even some CP play when Eugenia/Florence Quick seduced a railroad man who was really Marshal Charles Madsen, allowing herself to be forced across his knees, stripped of her pantalets and beaten with a leather belt. "Got a thing about spanking Flo's ass. Poor gal's so sore she can hardly sit down."

Nuns caught a 14-year-old Mary (offspring of a slave father and a Cherokee mother) in a hayloft with a delivery boy and a bottle of rotgut whiskey:

"I can't t'ink whad we're to do wid you," the Irish Mother lectured her. "Ye'll have to say t'irty hail Marys dis time and beg forgiveness for your sins."

"Aw, go piss down your knickers." Mary sent a wet pair of those garments that she was busy washing slapping around the face of the poor nun. "I ain't sayin' no more hail Marys to nobody. I don't believe in all that manure."

Later, black preacher/marshal Bass Reeves (another historical figure) had his way with Mary:

He took his key, and Mary's hand, and went with her up the stairs. As they sank down on to the bed, brown body tight  against black body, Bass sighed.  "I already broke the tenth commandment. I know fornication's  a sin, Lord, but" – he thrust himself deep into her – "it sure is wonderful."

And Mary cried out, clutching him to her, "Gawd! It sho' is."

These are just random selections. There was plenty more in the same vein, far more explicit and blasphemous than anything in Misfit Lil Cheats the Hangrope or Liberty and a Law Badge. So no, I don't think BHE Books are giving anybody greater creative freedom – just reclaiming the best of the pre-PC scope we were once allowed. And, as the reviewers concur, using it wisely to produce powerful, dramatic, character-driven fiction.

IT struck me while looking through some books on Frederic Remington's paintings that while not exactly promoting western novels, an examination of some of the artwork might interest BHE readers and inform today's writers.

Frederic Remington (1861-1909) is world renowned for his depictions of life in the Wild West. Art critics may not always agree on the artistic merits of his work, but the amount of small detail that he put into his paintings and drawings told a lot about the subjects he had selected and their way of life. He spent a considerable time with the Army in the 1880s and 1890s and his  studies of frontier life are fine reflections of that period.

Remington's paintings and sculptures are owned by museums and private collectors throughout the world, with the largest collection located in Ogdensburg at the Frederic Remington Art Museum. The museum says, "Remington is credited as being the primary image maker of the historic west."

After his marriage in 1884 to Eva Caton, his New York college sweetheart, Remington returned to Kansas City with his bride. He then spent two years touring frontier military posts. He rode with the cavalry on several south-western campaigns.

Later, exhibition honours and publication of his illustrations in leading magazines like Harper's Weekly led to numerous assignments that sent him west time and again to seek out subjects of interest to eastern readers. His paintings and drawings ran into thousands. We can do no better than to start with some of cavalry officers.

Readers will see from his depictions of cavalry soldiers that away from the parade ground a certain amount of individuality was allowed among officers in the field.

This lieutenant of the 10th Cavalry is fairly conventional except that he is using a cowboy-style gunbelt.. It should be noted that if swords were still carried they would have been attached to the saddle so the Civil War sword belt and awkward military holster were no longer necessary.

The looped cartridge belt or "prairie belt" as some soldiers called it, allowed quicker access to ammunition, made it more secure and usually held more cartridges than the older-type pouches. The officer's boots are standard cavalry issue as are the spurs that he wears low on his heels.


This officer is a good example of the wide variety of clothing and equipment used. His hat is military issue as are his coat and trousers but the boots and their long-necked spurs look to be civilian. Again he wears a civilian gunbelt but it is also adorned with a sheath knife in a fringed, Indian-made sheath. It looks as though the knife has been moved to a more prominent place for the sake of the painting as it would be a nuisance to a rider in the position shown. An unknown example of native American craft appears to be hanging from the back of his belt but it is unlikely to be another knife sheath.

While officers wore their six-shooters in civilian holsters, the ordinary troopers did not. They still wore their revolvers butt forward on the right hip. This manner of wearing the revolver made it readily accessible to either hand, and that was useful for a mounted man who might need to use a revolver, sabre or carbine while controlling an excited horse.

It has been said that every picture is worth a thousand words and if this is an exaggeration in some cases, Remington could tell a good story by his art and even today western writers might draw some inspiration from it.

NEW BLACK HORSE WESTERN NOVELS

Published by Robert Hale Ltd in February, March and April

                                                                                             978

Two Gun Marshal	John Saunders	0 7090 8793 9
Guns of Ponderosa	Chuck Tyrell	0 7090 8857 8
The Judas Metal	Gillian F. Taylor	0 7090 8858 5
The Legend of Tornado Tess	Terrell L. Bowers	0 7090 8865 3
The Tombstone Vendetta	Ralph Hayes	0 7090 8866 0
Confederate Paydirt	Robert Anderson	0 7090 8867 7
Wild Meddow	Caleb Rand	0 7090 8875 2
A Man Named Shonto	Ryan Bodie	0 7090 8839 4
The Second Coffeyville Bank Raid	Matt Laidlaw	0 7090 8874 5
Brazos Fugitive	Tyler Hatch	0 7090 8880 6
Rough Justice	Jackson Davis	0 7090 8881 3
The Devil's Gold	M. Duggan	0 7090 8882 0
Kincaid and the Barton Gang	Alan Irwin	0 7090 8888 2
Arkansas Smith	Jack Martin	0 7090 8889 9
Gone to Texas	J. D. Ryder	0 7090 8877 6
Between the Winds	M. M. Rowan	0 7090 8887 5
Unsigned Avenger	John Davage	0 7090 8894 3
Murdering Wells	Greg Mitchell	0 7090 8895 0
Wind Rider	Thomas McNulty	0 7090 8911 7
Doc Dryden, Gunslinger	Ted Rushgrove	0 7090 8912 4
By the Gun They Died	Matt James	0 7090 8913 1

Liberty and a Law Badge
Chap O'Keefe
978 1 4452 3857 9

ISBN 978-1-4452-3857-9

"From the very beginning this book moves at speed and then races along like a runaway train heading for a collision and destruction. As Chap O’Keefe introduces more and more characters, so the plot deepens through twists and turns, and all sides are brought together for a final, exciting clash of wits, guns and knives.

"Chap O’Keefe’s writing style is very readable and soon sucks you into the plot making this book very difficult to put down. There are plenty of strong male characters and a couple of memorable women, namely Liberty and Sophie, who take two of the leading roles in this tale. And if it’s action you want, this story is brimming with it."

– Western Fiction Review

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