Western Mysteries Blog

Saloon Archaeology Museum in Reno

2011-12-13T10:47:00.002Z

tickets from Piper's Opera House

On the fifth floor of the Ansari Business Building at the University of Nevada's Reno campus is a gem of a museum, currently showing a fascinating exhibition of Western Archaeology. The University of Nevada, Reno Anthropology Research Museum is part of the Anthropology Department. At the time of writing (December 2011) the exhibition called Archaeology of the Mining West features artifacts from saloon digs at Virginia City, the Silver Boom town featured in the 1960s TV show Bonanza and now in my new Western Mysteries series of books for kids aged 9+. (There is also a small case of items from one of the excavations of the ill-fated Donner Party, where pioneers had to resort to cannibalism to survive.)

Jessica Axsom with pictures of a dig

I first heard about the museum from Dr. Jessica Axsom (left), an archaeologist at the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office in Carson City. Every morning for a week in November of 2011, Jessica gave me access to their little reading room so I could do research. On the last day she showed me a whole box of artifacts from Battle Mountain, (where my great-grandmother Corinne Prince was born in the 1870s.) Jessica also showed me pictures of her dig in the Chinatown area of Virginia City, where my books are set. She didn't have any artifacts from Virginia City, but she told me I could see some at the small Anthropology museum in Reno.

Ansari Business Building

Jessica told me to ask for Sarah Heffner, a graduate student in charge of the Virginia City exhibition. A few hours before we were due to fly out of Reno, my sister and husband and I drove to the impressive campus, found the Ansari Business Building and went up to the 5th floor. We were lucky enough to ride up in the elevator with someone who knew Sarah and she kindly took us to the museum. Serendipity: Sarah was there! The museum is literally one room with about half a dozen cases and a research room tucked behind. It is manned by graduate students like Sarah, a "Museum Technician", and volunteers like Robert. (The exhibit itself was designed by a Museum Training for Anthropologists class.)

Sarah Heffner, Caroline & volunteer Robert

antique bottles

A glass case explained that Dr. Donald Hardesty is the recently retired professor of archaeology who was responsible for excavating sites of the Pony Express, the Donner Party and various saloons in Virginia City. In the four or five cases devoted to artefacts found in his digs, I was thrilled to see items from various saloons around Virginia City. The Boston Saloon is particularly fascinating because it is the first African-American Saloon ever excavated. As Dr. Hardesty says, "Archaeology is another way of travelling into the past." Entering the Boston Saloon you might have seen a gaslit space filled with pipe smoke, the smell of lamb chops and fine wine, and the sound of trombone music above the babble of happy voices. (To find out how they deduced this, have a look at this 2-part film clip.)

cases in the small museum

Also on display were artifacts found on the site of Piper's Corner Bar, (later Piper's Opera House), the Hibernia Brewery and O'Brien & Costello's Shooting Gallery & Saloon. It was thrilling to see tickets from the Opera House, poker chips charred by Virginia City's great fire of 1875 and gun shells from beneath the saloon shooting-gallery. There was even evidence of children found in some of the saloons: marbles and a doll's arm! Yes, Virginia City was a wild place, even for kids.

toys from Piper's Opera House Saloon

Artifacts from saloons included bottles, bungs, white and red clay pipes, dice, animal bones, oyster shells, buttons, bullets, coins and even a tooth powder box. A water filter made in London and a glazed earthenware spittoon were represented by photos. There was also a case devoted to the Chinese population of Virginia City, (Sarah Heffner's special subject), including Chinese coins, pottery, tiny medicine bottles, a bone toothbrush and an opium pipe. It was a delightful half hour travelling back in the past. If you have any interest in the archaeology of the Wild West – or Virginia City – and find yourself on the Reno campus, I urge you to go along to the University of Nevada, Reno Anthropology Research Museum. Just tell them Caroline Lawrence sent you!

P.S. You can see more about Saloon Archaeology HERE and you can find out about the Western Mysteries HERE.

Twain's Bloody Massacre

2011-10-31T11:22:00.002Z

Insensitive, moi?

Was a real life incident in July 1863 part inspiration for one of Mark Twain's most famous newspaper hoax articles?

[Warning: I am about to quote some fairly graphic descriptions of death by Bowie knife]

Before Mark Twain was a genial, white-haired, much-beloved raconteur, he was a hard-drinking, hot-tempered, pipe-puffing reporter with "mutton chop" sideburns and no mustache. (left) He lived in Virginia City (famous for being the setting of the TV series Bonanza) and he wrote for the Territorial Enterprise Newspaper. The Comstock, as that region was called, was wild and woolly, full of "thieves, murderers, desperadoes, ladies, children, lawyers, Christians, Indians, Spaniards, gamblers, sharpers, coyotes, poets, preachers, and jackass rabbits." Despite this rich vein of journalistic gold, Sam Clemens – who had not yet adopted the pseudonym Mark Twain – was not afraid of slandering local residents or even of making up hoax stories to fill blank pages of the paper.

His first hoax, early in October of 1862, was an article about a Petrified Man found in the Nevada desert east of Virgina City. Twain describes a prospector with a wooden leg who was found turned to stone at a place called Gravelly Ford. He describes the man's position, and if any of his readers had bothered to adopt the pose – or even mentally visualise it – they would have realised immediately that Twain was joshing them. (He even signed that article "Josh") One of his main aims in writing this hoax piece was to vex an enemy of his, a man named George Sewall with whom he was feuding. And he succeeded. People generally do not expect the printed word to be an outright lie.

A year later, Twain wrote another hoax, a truly grisly piece about a man living in Empire City who supposedly kills and mutilates his family, cuts his own throat from ear to ear, then rides three miles before dropping dead on the steps of a Carson City saloon. Once again, careful readers would have read the clues and figured out that this story wasn't true. After all, how can a man ride three miles with his throat cut from ear to ear? (see map above right)

But readers of the morning paper pushed away their breakfasts in horror upon reading Twain's grisly report of the unhinged father's murder and mutilation of his family.

Territorial Enterprise readers put off their breakfast by Twain's gory article

Territorial Enterprise, October 28, 1863
A BLOODY MASSACRE NEAR CARSON
From Abram Curry, who arrived here yesterday afternoon from Carson, we have learned the following particulars concerning a bloody massacre which was committed in Ormsby county night before last. It seems that during the past six months a man named P. Hopkins, or Philip Hopkins, has been residing with his family in the old log house just at the edge of the great pine forest which lies between Empire City and Dutch Nick's... About ten o'clock on Monday evening Hopkins dashed into Carson on horseback, with his throat cut from ear to ear, and bearing in his hand a reeking scalp from which the warm, smoking blood was still dripping, and fell in a dying condition in front of the Magnolia saloon... [even more graphically bloody details follow, which you can read HERE.]

The Journals of Alfred Doten

I've been reading (and re-reading) the Journals of Alfred Doten as part of researching my Western Mysteries stories set in and around Virginia City in the early 1860s. Like Mark Twain, Alf Doten was a failed prospector turned journalist. Throughout his life he kept meticulous and detailed journals, recounting the weather, cost of things and concrete details of life in the California gold fields and later on the Comstock, in Nevada.

This morning over breakfast I pushed away my own yogurt and strawberries in dismay as I read Doten's sad and distressing entry for 16 July 1863.

July 16 - About 8 oclock this evening a man by the name of Patrick Comerford committed suicide at the Mineral Hill tunnel, some 2 miles below here [Como, Nevada]. He was living near the mouth of tunnel with some half dozen others - he went into the tunnel and with a bowie knife he cut his throat - first ripped it up from upper part of breast bone to his chin & then cut across nearly from ear to ear, severing the jugular, windpipe &c - did the job securely - his partners heard him groan and went in and found him - he died in a few minutes - one of them immediately came up to town &c told the story - several people went down there - Briar went - he acted as Coroner and the jury gave verdict in accordance with the facts - he was an Irishman and about 35 or 40 yrs old - no reason could be assigned for the rash act - he seemed to be all right enough but somewhat troubled in his mind, and at times somewhat abstracted
Journal of Alfred Doten p 719

As a writer who constantly draws inspiration from things I read and hear about, I am pretty sure that poor Patrick Comerfield's bloody suicide in July 1863 was partly the inspiration for Twain's "Bloody Massacre" hoax, written three months later. The gruesome details of Comerford's suicide must have spread like wildfire even if not reported by local papers.

Thus it is not too surprising that many Comstockers believed Twain's similar but greatly embellished account of a bloody suicide by Bowie knife. In fact, the article caused such horror and outrage that, Twain had to print this retraction the very next day:

Territorial Enterprise, October 29, 1863
I TAKE IT ALL BACK
The story published in the Enterprise reciting the slaughter of a family near Empire was all a fiction. It was understood to be such by all acquainted with the locality in which the alleged affair occurred. In the first place, Empire City and Dutch Nick's are one, and in the next there is no "great pine forest" nearer than the Sierra Nevada mountains, etc.

[For more retrospection about this hoax read Mark Twain's Sketches New and Old.]

You would think Twain might have learnt his lesson, but no. Six months later, in May of 1864, he wrote a different sort of hoax, this one about the Ladies of Carson City. As a result of this third hoax the hot-blooded young reporter was challenged to a duel by pistol and had to flee Nevada. But that's another story.

[The second book in my Western Mysteries series, out June 2012, was originally going to be called The Case of the Petrified Man, but had to be re-named The Case of the Good-Looking Corpse as the first title was not considered exciting enough for kids. Like many writers of the past, I am still getting inspiration from events of the bloody Comstock as recorded by Sam Clemens, Alf Doten and many others.]

Western Mysteries ABCs

2011-09-22T13:52:00.001+01:00

A basic GLOSSARY for British children reading the Western Mysteries who might not know what a Desperado or a Stagecoach is... or where Nevada and Utah are.

America in 1862

A is for America - the country across the Atlantic Ocean where people speak English with funny accents. It is also known as the United States, but in 1862, the states only went halfway across America with a few on the west coast. A great chunk of land in the west was called "Territory". Towns in the Territories were often lawless and wild.

Is P.K. a Desperado?

B is for Ball & Blackpowder - this is what old-fashioned bullets were made of. You also needed lint and a tiny little metal cap that you put on the back of each hole in the cylinder of your Revolver to make a spark which set off the powder and get the ball flying towards its target. Later on they put the cap and ball and powder in one metal case called a cartridge. This is what we now call a Bullet.

A Chinese Youth

C is for Chinese (not Cowboys) - in the early 1860s, when The Western Mysteries are set, there were far more Chinese out west than Cowboys. Cattle drives did not begin in earnest until 1866.
D is for Desperado - a desperate person who is usually on the run after committing murder, robbery or other serious crime.
E is for Emigrants - most of the people who flooded to America in the 1800s were emigrants from Euorpean countries like England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, France, Russia, etc. And, of course, the thousands from China.
F is for Frontier - the place in the American West where settled land gave way to wilderness populated by wild animals and Native American tribes.

A Gunslinger

G is for Gunslingers - almost everybody carried a firearm in the 1860s out west, even women & kids.
H is for Horses - The West in the early 1860s was a world mostly driven and powered by animals with hooves like horses, mules and oxen.

An Indian Tomahawk

I is for Indians or Native Americans - the tribes of people already living in North America when the emigrants arrived were as varied as the people from European countries, sometimes more so.
J is for Jackrabbit, also coyote, grizzly bear, prairie dog, buffalo and all the other unique wildlife found in the West.

A Kerosene Lamp

K is for kerosene or coal-oil, which is what folk used to light their lamps. They used candles, too. In 1862 gas had not quite reached Virginia City.
L is for Lincoln - who was president between 1861 and 1865 when America was fighting a terrible Civil War over slavery and freedom.

26-year-old Mark Twain

M is for Mark Twain - his real name was Sam Clemens and he was one of America's greatest authors and humorists. He joined the Civil War for about two weeks then headed west to Nevada Territory with his brother Orion, who had been appointed secretary to the governor. After trying his hand at prospecting, Mark Twain became a reporter in Virginia City where he remained for two and a half years. Many years later he wrote Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn, among others.
N is for Nevada - then a "Territory" and now the triangular state to the right of California, (see maps). It is full of deserts, mountains and minerals.
O is for Ore - rock and/or dirt containing precious metals or minerals. The Gold Rush in 1849 brought a huge wave of people to California, then ten years later the Silver Boom brought thousands Nevada, to the Comstock Lode beneath Mount Davidson.
P is for Pinkerton - the first detective agency in the world. The founder, a Scotsman named Allan Pinkerton, coined the phrase "Private Eye". Their head office was in Chicago, Illinois (one of the high-up states in the middle).

A Quartz Stamp Mill

Q is for quartz stamp mill - a machine with heavy iron pistons that crushed quartz so that silver and gold could be extracted.
R is for religious revival - America was going through a great Christian revival in the 1860s and almost everybody was deeply devout.
S is for stagecoach - a large, closed carriage pulled by four to six horses; it was used to carry passengers, goods and mail on a regular route. Sometimes you could ride on top.
T is for tobacco - like religion, almost everybody had tobacco. They either smoked it, sniffed it or chewed it. Those who chewed usually spit their tobacco-tinted saliva into vessels called spittoons. Ew.

A Stagecoach

U is for Utah - now the state to the right of Nevada on a map, then it was a "Territory", a part of America which did not yet have the full rights of the other states.

Nevada Territory 1862

V is for Virginia City - the mile-high city on a steep mountain above a buried "ledge" of silver called the Comstock Lode.
W is for Washoe - the region around Virginia City, named after a lake to the west (see map) and also a tribe of Indians who lived there.
X is for "X marks the Spot" - Prospectors were people who prospected or "looked out for" areas where gold or silver could be found. Then they "staked their claim" i.e. announced it as theirs. They guarded their claims with bowie knives, revolvers, rifles... and their lives.
Y is for Yankee or Yank - slang for somebody from the northern states or on the Union side of the Civil War. A person on the other (Confederate) side was often called a Reb or Rebel.

Washoe Zephyr

Z is for zephyr - by definition a warm and gentle breeze. In Virginia City, a Washoe Zephyr was what people jokingly called the gale force wind that sometimes swept over the mountains and threatened to uproot trees and houses.

If you would like to read a book with all these words and a heck of a lot of adventure, get The Case of the Deadly Desperados by Caroline Lawrence. It is available in hardback, Kindle and unabridged audiobook format. Suitable for children aged 9+. Perfect for American history at Key Stages 2 & 3.

Stagecoach Etiquette

2011-08-24T09:07:00.002+01:00

These tips for people travelling by stagecoach come from a 1877 issue of the Omaha Herald newspaper. They give you a good idea of how uncomfortable it must have been to make long journeys by stagecoach in olden days, and they don't even mention the poor sods who had to sit on top!

an overcrowded stagecoach

The best seat inside a stage is the one next to the driver. Even if you have a tendency to sea-sickness when riding backwards - you'll get over it and will get less jolts and jostling. Don't let "sly elph" trade you his mid-seat.

In cold weather, don't ride with tight-fitting boots, shoes or gloves. When the driver asks you to get off and walk, do so without grumbling, he won't request it unless absolutely necessary. If the team runs away - sit still and take your chances. If you jump, nine out of ten times you will get hurt.

In very cold weather abstain entirely from liquor when on the road, because you will freeze twice as quickly when under its influence.

Don't growl at the food received at the station - stage companies generally provide the best they can get.

roads were hair-raising

Don't keep the stage waiting.

Don't smoke a strong pipe inside the coach.

Spit on the leeward side...

Don't lean or lop over neighbours when sleeping.

Take small change to pay expenses.

Never shoot on the road as the noise might frighten the horses. Don't discuss politics or religion.

Don't point out where murders have been committed, especially if there are women passengers.

Don't lag at the wash basin. Don't grease your hair, because travel is dusty. Don't imagine for a moment that you are going on a picnic. Expect annoyances, discomfort and some hardships.

Find out more about Stagecoaches, Saloons, Spittoons, and Scalpings at my Western Mysteries session on Friday 26 August 2011 from 4.00-5.00 at the Edinburgh Book Festival.

watch the mini-trailer on YouTube

Trailer for the first Western Mystery, The Case of the Deadly Desperados

Virginia City 1862

2011-08-17T20:19:00.003+01:00

Virginia City, Nevada Territory - September 1862.

P.K. Pinkerton, Private Eye

When desperados kill the preacher and his wife in a small frontier town, their foster child P.K. is forced to go on the run. P.K. must get a valuable letter to the Recorder’s Office before anyone else can get their hands on it. It’s not easy: Virginia City is full of gamblers, hurdy girls, saloon-keepers and gunmen, all of them on the make. But there are possible allies: Sam Clemens, the new reporter for the paper, a gambler called ‘Poker Face Jace’, a derringer-packing Soiled Dove, and a Chinese photographer’s apprentice named Ping.

Map of the Washoe

Virginia City was a famous mining town in Nevada that sprang up on the slopes of Mt Davidson in 1859, ten years after the California Gold Rush. But it was silver, not gold, that was found in quantity in this barren part of Nevada, so some have dubbed it the Silver Rush. When Mark Twain arrived in September 1862 he described Virginia City in this way: ‘It claimed a population of fifteen thousand to eighteen thousand, and all day long half of this little army swarmed the streets like bees and the other half swarmed among the drifts and tunnels of the “Comstock”, hundreds of feet down in the earth directly under those same streets.’

In the 1860's Virginia City must have been one of the most colorful places on earth, with prospectors, miners, saloon-keepers, gamblers, dancing girls, deserters, actresses, desperados, lawyers, schoolmarms and newspapermen. In the last category are some well-known names (Dan De Quille, Alf Doten, Joe Goodman) and one stellar one: Mark Twain. Their dry-as-dust humor, tall tales and hoaxes produced a uniquely Western flavor of literature which some call "Sagebrush Humor."

Sam Clemens is Mark Twain

The Comstock in 1862 was an extreme example of what we might call "politically incorrect". People gambled, cursed, smoked, spat, drank, carried firearms, murdered one another, ate opium, sparked, and exhibited racism at its worst. It was an ethnic melting pot, boasting Irish, Germans, several tribes of Native Americans, African Americans, Chinese and Mexican residents. Many of the inhabitants had come west to avoid the horrors (or duty) of fighting in the War between the States. Almost everyone came to get rich, though there were a few who came to save souls of others or lose their own.

In short, Virginia City was a crucible; it made some great, and destroyed others. What will happen to 12 year old P.K. Pinkerton? Read the Western Mysteries to find out.

Western Mysteries author Caroline Lawrence will be talking about her new series at the Edinburgh Festival from 5.00-6.00pm on Friday 26 August 2011. For more info, and to book, go HERE.

Historical Inaccuracies Rule!

2011-07-01T00:02:00.000+01:00

Try to avoid anachronisms

One of the challenges of writing historical fiction for children to balance accuracy and fun. It's no good having a bazillion accurate facts if the books are dry as dust. And it's no good telling a ripsnorting yarn if your story isn't at least 95% accurate.

In my Roman Mysteries I was meticulous about getting historical details, events and people as accurately as possible, but I made my hero – the 10-year-old detectrix Flavia Gemina – as independent as any 21st century schoolgirl. Maybe more so. I needed to make Flavia and her pals accessible so that children could identify with them and enter the world and so absorb the details of the period. It was a balancing act, challenging but fun. I tried not to let too many inaccuracies creep in, but one or two per book were necessary.

Virginia City re-enactor

I have the same problem with my new Western Mysteries series, set in Virginia City, Nevada Territory, in 1862. To me it is deeply thrilling. I have the Civil War, Indian battles, the Salting of Silver Mines, Runaway Slaves, Mark Twain & other priceless primary sources. Plus Virginia City is still there and chock full of museums, mine shafts, lively saloons (!) and historical re-enactors. But it's still going to be a hard sell to children aged 9+ in the UK. To them this time and place is deeply unsexy. Their grandfathers liked Western movies for heaven's sake. How uncool is that?

So, in a bid to make the period immediately engaging and fun, I went to five of the most famous visual images of the Western: blazing six-shooters, the Stetson hat, sheriff's badges, swinging saloon doors and WANTED posters. The problem is, all five of these iconic artefacts are basically myth. Especially in Nevada Territory in 1862. But I decided to indulge myself with two of them.

the author with replica Colt & badge

Myth #1 - Blazing six-shooters

This is the image of 90% of the Westerns you see on TV or in cinemas. The myth is so strong it has spawned Cowboy Fast Draw as a new sport, especially popular in states like Nevada and Arizona, where almost anybody can carry a loaded firearm. I had huge fun in May at the Genoa Cowboy Festival. I got to fire a revolver at targets with wax-filled cartridges. Anything under 1 second is considered good. The champions can draw, cock, fire and hit the target in under half a second.

Denied! At the time my books are set – 1862-63 – cartridges were brand new. Most guns needed to be painstakingly loaded with black powder, cap, ball and wad. (I've tried this, too.) With this kind of ammo, misfires are common. When you DO hit something they often set the victim's clothes on fire. How often do we see that in movies? In old westerns, a bullet means instant death. In reality people often survived after being shot multiple times. That myth I can bust. Accounts of real historical shootouts are exciting, shocking and sometimes even amusing.

Sheriff Tom Peasley

Myth #2 - Sheriff Badges, etc.

Think of Gary Cooper in High Noon, dropping his badge in the dust as his response to the refusal of the town to acknowledge its authority. Or Henry Fonda in The Tin Star, where the sheriff's badge symbolises his redemption. Surely that's not a myth?
Denied! During my last research trip to Virginia City I learned that lawmen did not wear badges until 1874, a full dozen years after my first book is set. Nor did marshals, sheriffs or police (yes they had them too) wear any distinctive uniform for many years. So how did you know you were facing the law? Fascinating. I'm going to use the reality here, too, as it could provide lots of drama. But I'll carry on wearing my Virginia City Deputy Sheriff's star to parties and book launches.

The Duke in his hat

Myth #3 - Stetson Hats

Ten-gallon hats, Stetson hats & cowboy hats! Think of Steve McQueen and his disgustingly realistic-looking sweat-stained hat in The Magnificent Seven. Or John Wayne and his famous white(ish) cowboy hat. (right) Surely those are a legitimate icon of the 1860s?

Denied! Most men in Virginia City wore something Dickens would have worn. Mr. Stetson didn't sell his first hat until 1865, a few years after my books are set. Mark Twain, (my vocabulary source for 1862), describes himself as arriving in Virginia City with a slouch hat, a soft felt hat usually of brown or black. That's the type of hat my character is wearing on the front cover of my book. So in my books my male characters wear plug hats, stovepipe hats or slouch hats. And my women are almost universally in bonnets. The dude on the black and white carte de visite up above is Tom Peasley, a famous Virginia City Sheriff from 1866.

Myth #4 - Swinging Saloon Doors
Is there anything more iconic (or fun) about a wild Western town than The Stranger swinging in through those butterfly doors? The piano player stops, the room goes silent, everybody turns to stare and you can be sure there will be a fist-fight or a shootout before long.
Denied! One scholarly resident of Virginia City tells me that saloons there never had the famous swinging doors so beloved of Western movies. One reason may have been the hurricane force wind fondly known by the locals as the "Washoe Zephyr". It was strong enough to blow off tin roofs and carry away small mammals.

El Indio

Myth #5 - WANTED posters

Think of all those great Western movies where the WANTED poster tells you exactly what the bad guy looks like. One of my personal favourites is in Sergio Leone's For a Few Dollars More, where the evil laughing baddie El Indio is freeze-framed mid-cackle and the image becomes his WANTED poster.

Denied! My Nevada historian friend assures me that WANTED posters from the 1860s and 1870s were probably printed handbills with a plain verbal description. I have a replica of the WANTED poster for Lincoln's assassin up on my wall and she's right. Exclamation points, yes. Pictures, no.

But swinging saloon doors and WANTED posters are iconic images from the Western genre, so I've decided that both of these particular myths will appear in my book and on my website. I want to tell readers – especially young readers – that this is a series about the Wild West, with cowboys and indians; gambling and drinking; horses and mules; guns and knives; action and excitement. I can do that instantly with saloon doors and WANTED posters.

So the naughty swinging doors became the portal to my website and the illustrated WANTED poster became the cover image for the book.

Wisely used, historical inaccuracies can be the spice to bring the past to life, but like spice they should be used sparingly and knowingly. The historical author should know exactly what she is doing and why. Inaccuracies through ignorance are not allowed, so if I get something wrong, don't be afraid to tell me!

The Case of the Deadly Desperados is the Telegraph Family Book Club choice for June. Read the review and see questions for book group discussion HERE.

Truly Gritty

2011-06-14T23:49:00.000+01:00

My Top Five GRITTY Westerns for kids.

Everybody has their own definition of a “western”. Here’s my definition:
A Western doesn’t have to have cowboys or Indians but it
should have horses and/or mules.
should be set in the American west in the 1800s.
should have six-shooters, smoking, gambling and drinking.
should have a hero who fights against overwhelming odds.
should have some harsh but beautiful landscapes & big skies.

Because Westerns are usually about survival of individuals in the extreme situations of a frontier world, they are usually too violent and politically incorrect for children. The ones that ARE aimed at children are often too sanitized for my liking. I like gritty reality with a dollop of danger. So here are five of my favourite Western books; ones suitable for kids but which also have grit, grime and menace. I’ve placed them in order of ascending grittiness.

1. The Ballad of Lucy Whipple (U) by Karen Cushman
This is the tale of a girl in a California mining camp during the American Gold Rush. I like this story because it transports you to another time and place, with wonderful details about the plants, animals and climate of the Sierra Nevada mountains combined with food, clothing and equipment of gold miners in the 1850s. This is probably the safest of the five books on my list, because it was written especially for children, but like all good stories it is compelling enough for adults to enjoy, too. Plus it has plenty of grit and grime.

2. Hondo (PG) by Louis L’Amour
Louis L’Amour is considered one of the greatest Western writers and this is one of his greatest books. The story follows a strong, silent hero named Hondo who helps a woman and her son living in hostile Apache territory. The best bit of the book is a section at the end where Hondo teaches the boy how to track and hunt Indian-fashion. The John Wayne movie is good but doesn’t have the tips about tracking and desert survival.

3. True Grit (PG) by Charles Portis
This deadpan masterpiece by Charles Portis is one of my top ten fave books of all time. It recounts the story of a fourteen-year-old girl named Mattie Ross who hires a fat, half-blind Marshal to help her avenge her father’s cold-blooded murder. Both of them have ‘grit’, (which can mean ‘courage’ as well as crunchy dirt.) True Grit is one of those books you can read over and over and always find something new. Both movie versions are good, but the book is better. Best of all is the audio book, read by American author Donna Tartt. She captures Mattie Ross’s voice perfectly.

4. Boone’s Lick (PG) by Larry McMurtry
Like Charles Portis, Larry McMurtry is another great American author. His Pulitzer-prize-winning Lonesome Dove was made into a highly-acclaimed TV mini-series. His screenplay of Brokeback Mountain won an Oscar. Boone’s Lick is based on the real events of an Indian massacre in 1866, a year after the Civil War ended. The narrator is fifteen-year-old Shay. Some scenes are quite brutal, but it’s suitable for readers 10+. As with True Grit, there is a superb audiobook version, read by actor Will Patton, who makes McMurtry’s drily funny characters even better than they are on the page. No mean feat.

5. St. Agnes' Stand (15) by Thomas Eidson
WARNING: This book has harrowing scenes of torture by Apache. It made me understand why you always save the last bullet for yourself in an Indian attack. (gulp!) But if you have a strong stomach, it is a beautiful Western with a powerful message of love and redemption. And don’t forget my new book, The Case of the Deadly Desperados, which falls between True Grit and Boone’s Lick on the True Grittiness scale.

Inhabiting the West

2011-06-14T08:01:00.000+01:00

yee-haw!

Virtual Stagecoach for my Western Mysteries Blog Tour

This is the final dusty stop on my blog tour to promote my new “Dime Novel”, The Case of the Deadly Desperados. It has been quite a journey but I have enjoyed it.

The first stop on my tour was a big ole Hay Festival. I did not see many Bales of Hay but I saw some International Personalities & also a passel of Authors of Dime Novels. I must have got some of that there “Hay Fever” because I shared some special secrets about my own Dime Novel. Yup, I told them all about Reading People & Writing Character.

The next day my Virtual Stagecoach took me to Bart’s. Bart’s Bookshelf, that is. It was kind of dark in there but that Darren made me & my Driver feel real welcome. We sat by the cosy fireplace sipping whiskey while I described some places I had visited to help me Write about the West.

Day Three was bully. I had been riding beside Douglas, the driver of my Virtual Stagecoach. I hopped down & I strode into the Book Bag (is it a Saddlery?) & announced my Fave Five Western Movies for Kids, and also my 5 for Adults, too. Nobody took a bullwhip to me, and the two lady proprietresses said I had “great taste” so I guess they liked my choices.

My "Dime Novel"

On Saturday June 4th, Douglas drove me over to the Book Zone Saloon. It was mighty dark in there, too, but as our eyes adjusted we saw lots of Child Detectives including my three Favorites. One is called “Nancy”, one is from London & one is a mite strange. The proprietor was real friendly. He was also called Darren. I suppose I will have to put a Saloon-keeper called “Darren” into my next Dime Novel...

There was no Sabbath Rest on Day Five. Our stagecoach made 12 Heroic Stops. Still, it was worth it to talk about Story Structure over at Miss Becky “Bookette” Scott’s Lending Library. Miss Becky is real cheerful & she liked my book a lot. I blush to say she called it “genius”. Aw, shucks.

On the sixth day of my trip I visited a retired Schoolmarm in a town called Serendipity. She wants to write them Dime Novels, too. I told her my 5 Favorite Places to Write. Miss Viv liked my books so much that she rushed out to the local stationer & bought a passel of ’em. Not my Dime Novel, I hasten to add. My Writers’ Notebooks.

Sarsaparilla

Monday the 7th was my seventh stop and I was glad to wet my gullet at the Fiction Thirst Saloon. The proprietor Rhys was only about 15 or maybe 16 yrs old. So we drank sarsaparilla instead of whiskey. I reminisced about my childhood and I told him about The First Gunslingers I Ever Met, back in the days when things were still in black & white. One of them dressed All in Black & one of them wore Trowsers so Tight they Split & one of them was a Master of Disguise.

Well, by Day 8 I was getting tuckered out. So I stopped by Miss Jenny's Wondrous Place. It was all done up in purple velvet with stars on the roof and real pretty gals there, especially the proprietress, Jenny. I didn’t want to inquire too closely as to what sort of an establishment it was – some of those gals had real pale skin and sharp teeth – so I tried to distract them with Some Music. Some of their gentlemen and lady callers seemed to like my choice of songs.

There followed another day of relaxification - Day 9 - over at Angel's Boarding House. Funny, but that place was kind of purple, too, but with leaves this time, not stars. And here is the strange thing: I told Miss Emma AKA "Angel" about my Favorite Inspirational Music and she showed me pictures on the walls that seemed to move & play the very songs I had been describing! I guess she is some kind of Magician or maybe one of them Spiritualists.

Day Ten. After my two restful purple days, we stopped by Sheriff Karen’s Eurocrime Jail to bail out My Favourite Character from the old West. He is now riding along with us. He has 5 Christian names & 1 Silver Tooth. He wears his gun around his neck but uses belt AND braces to hold his pants up. And he just ate the cheroot I offered him. My stagecoach driver Douglas says he “stinks like a pig”, but I kind of like him. I wonder if you can guess who he is?

not the final cover

The rains came on Day 11 of our journey so that little beads of water dotted the window of Mr. Ripley’s Enchanted Books & Elixir Wagon. I told him How We Chose the Cover for my Dime Novel. He seemed pleased and said he kind of preferred the version we didn’t use. My feelings weren’t hurt none. I just hope that won’t stop him from reading it.

Miss “Book Maven” Mary runs a respectable joint. I stopped in there on Day 12. I was expecting tea in china cups, but she gave me whiskey & a plug of tobacco! Once I recovered from this shock, I told her why I am now spending more time in the Wild West than in Ancient Rome, even though I can talk Greek & Latin & some of them other Dead Languages. Miss Mary writes some mighty exciting books, too. Like a book about a young man who posed in not even his union suit for that there Italian statue called David.

My next stop was at the claim of an Old Timer name of Mr. Scottish Book Trust. They call him “Scotty” for short. I waited a while at the mouth of his tunnel & then who should appear but his daughter! I pulled Seven of my Best Writing Tips out of my Carpet Bag and traded them for a few "feet" of her mine. Heather seemed pleased with the trade, so my 13th stop turned out to be a lucky one.

Well, the end of my trail has now hove into sight. For my last stop, my stagecoach driver Douglas has said why don’t I give a lecture on “Inhabiting the West”.

I guess all those things I have been talking about over the past two weeks help me to “inhabit the west”. I talk to people & hear their stories. I listen to music & study maps & look at some of those stereoscopic photographs. And I walk around a lot, daydreaming. I reckon the best way to inhabit the west is to go there – not Virtual but Real-like – and breathe in that Sagebrush-scented Atmosphere & look at that Big Sky & maybe Ride a Horse. But if you can’t afford the fare, then the next best thing is to Read a Book.

"Douglas" (left) with Caroline

So as an added Extra Bonus I am going to tell you my Five Favorite Books for transporting you to the West, especially if You are a Kid. I am going to telegraph those choices to Prospector Zac in a place called Christ Church in New Zealand because it is too far for Douglas my Stagecoach Driver to take me and our horses might get damp. But I will also post them tomorrow on this here Notice Board.

I would like to say a big THANK YOU to all those people who hosted me on my Western Mysteries Blog Tour and especially to my stalwart Stagecoach Driver, Douglas. Nina Douglas, that is. Yes, Douglas is a Girl. (above)

Hero's Journey in Westerns

2011-06-05T08:01:00.000+01:00

I’ve just blogged about The Hero’s Journey over at thebookette.co.uk. This story-writing plot-structure was devised by Hollywood screenwriter Christopher Vogler after reading Joseph Campbell's book on world mythology, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The template is a great tool and can be applied to many myth-based stories, i.e. stories in which the hero goes on a quest of some sort.

As promised, here is my version of Vogler’s twelve steps as I’ve applied them to my first Western Mystery, The Case of the Deadly Desperados, and as I detect them in two other recent Western films: True Grit and Rango.

Warning: Here be Spoilers!

1. The Ordinary Hero in his Ordinary World

A hero exists in an ordinary world, yearning for something more. Deep down he knows he is called to something greater. To us the hero’s world might be fascinating and exotic, but to him, it’s ordinary: sometimes comfortable, sometimes oppressive, sometimes both. 14-year-old Mattie Ross, the hero of True Grit, lives in Yell County near Dardanelle, Arkansas. She is her family’s book-keeper. The world makes sense to her, everything adds up and her parents even depend on her in various ways. Rango is a chameleon; his ordinary world is a safe but boring terrarium with a few lifeless friends. The hero of my new Western Mysteries series, 12-year-old P.K. Pinkerton, lives in the flyspeck town of Temperance in the Nevada desert with his Methodist foster parents. P.K. is a social misfit who doesn’t know how to ‘read people’.

2. The Call to Adventure

In Greek mythology the messenger god often comes down from Mount Olympus to summon the hero on a quest. Sometimes the ‘call to adventure’ is a disaster that forces the hero to leave his comfort zone. In True Grit, it is the sudden and violent death of Mattie’s father that calls her away from her accounts. For once, things don’t add up. Meanwhile, over in his terrarium, Rango is bored. ‘What our story needs,’ he says, ‘is an ironic unexpected event that will propel the hero into conflict…’ He gets this wish in an unexpected way, when his owners swerve to avoid an accident and his entire ‘world’ is flung high up into the air. In the first Western mystery, P.K. Pinkerton finds his foster parents scalped and dying. His mother urges P.K. to run; the killers are after him! In some screenwriting templates, this step is called the Inciting Incident.

3. The Mentor

In Greek mythology, the mentor is usually a god or goddess. In modern versions, the mentor is a wise older person who knows the hero’s abilities and encourages the hero to use them. If the hero refuses to heed the Call to Adventure the mentor encourages her and often gives helpful advice. The mentor does not usually participate in the quest but sometimes they – or a different mentor – appear at a ‘life or death moment’ for the hero. In True Grit, you could say that Mattie Ross’s first mentor is her dead father; he ‘calls her on the journey’. Her second mentor is Rooster Cogburn, who teaches her and helps her in her hour of greatest need. The armadillo ‘Roadkill’ sets Rango on his journey; he wears his experience as a scar. Later, the personified ‘Spirit of the West’ helps Rango in his bleakest hour. P.K.’s first mentor is his dying foster ma Evangeline. She tells P.K. to run and to take his medicine bag. Later P.K. meets Poker Face Jace, who will teach him to understand people.

4. The Talisman

It is often at this point that the hero receives a talisman, an object of magical value which represents his authority to go on the quest and which also helps him. Theseus had his father’s sword. Luke had his father’s Light Sabre. In the western genre, the talisman is often a gun. Mattie has her father’s Colt Dragoon. Rango gets a gun, too. So does P.K., but his real talisman is his father’s “detective button”. Sometimes the talisman has magical abilities, but its greatest power is what it symbolizes, an important aspect of the hero’s destiny.

5. Crossing the Threshold

A single step can take the hero from his ‘ordinary’ world into the world of adventure. As the hero passes into the new ‘World of Adventure’, she often meets some ‘Threshold Guardians’: characters who would prevent her from entering the new world. She often has to battle them with strength or skill, or both. This is a kind of preliminary test to make sure she is worthy. In True Grit, Mattie crosses a threshold when she makes Blackie swim the river in order to prove to the ‘threshold guardians’ (Rooster & LeBoeuf) that she has the right to come on the adventure. Rango’s threshold is the desert highway he must cross to enter ‘the land without end, the desert and death are the closest of friends…’ My 12-year-old hero climbs on top of a passing stagecoach and flattens himself “as flat as a postage stamp” as it passes through Devil’s Gate from the desert into Virginia City AKA Satan’s Playground.

6. Enemies & Allies

In the new world, the hero begins to meet various characters. Some are enemies. Some are allies. Some are both. One fun archetype in this type of story is the apparent enemy who later becomes a friend. True Grit and Rango are both chock full of interesting and unpredictable characters. In my book, P.K. makes valuable allies in the form of several newspapermen, a Soiled Dove named Belle and a Chinese boy called Ping. And of course there is Poker Face Jace, who knows how to read body language.

7. Training

As the hero gets closer to his goal, he must often learn new skills in preparation for meeting the ultimate opponent. Mattie learns that hunting a wanted man ‘ain’t no coon hunt’. Rango learns how to play a new role, that of a gunslinger and action man. P.K. Pinkerton learns to find his way around Virginia City and how to read people.

8. Approach to the Inmost Cave

The tension and stakes increase as the hero nears the ‘inmost cave’ where he will battle the ‘monster’ for the prize. Think of Theseus, who travels from Corinth to Athens, vanquishing baddies, beasts and tricksters along the way. This is not the big battle but it prepares our hero for the big battle.

9. The Supreme ordeal or Battle

There may have been several battles along the way but this is the big one, the one that counts. Theseus finally lands in Crete and descends into the labyrinth to fight the minotaur and win the prize of his people’s lives. Often the hero first comes face to face with death and his own mortality. It is at this point that the hero realises their true identity, often as a leader. Mattie must face the man who killed her father, Ned Chaney. Rango must face the Mayor, the worst of several baddies. P.K. must face Whittlin’ Walt, the most notorious desperado in Nevada Territory.

10. The Reward

If the hero wins the battle, he gets the reward. This can be a sword or a golden fleece or a beautiful princess. Mattie is after revenge; Rango seeks water and P.K. wants to cash in a valuable document. But the prize itself is almost always immaterial. The real prize is the knowledge the hero gains, sometimes even if he ‘loses’. In the Western genre the lesson is often a hard one. Mattie learns that revenge does not come without a price. Rango learns that as sheriff, he can be a real contributing member of a community not just a play actor. P.K. learns … well, I’ll leave that for you to find out.

11. The Resurrection

In Greek myths, this is the part where the hero emerges from the Underworld. He is the same, but different. His journey has changed him forever. Mattie almost dies but is brought back by Rooster Cogburn’s almost superhuman effort. Rango is reborn as sheriff and takes on the name he gave himself: Rango. P.K. realises who he really is.

Mattie Ross in the snake pit

12. Return with the Elixir

In mythology Jason returns with a fleece that will heal the sick. Mattie pays a great price and learns a terrible lesson, returning with the knowledge of what the world is really like. Better she had never gone on this particular quest. In the hands of the Coen Brothers, hers is a bleak story, with a bitter ending. Rango, on the other hand finds his place in the world, among new friends and lovers. P.K. returns from the depths of a mine shaft with a new certainty about his particular calling and identity.

The Hero’s Journey Structure is both formulaic and powerful. It isn’t right for every story, but when it can be applied it makes for some mighty good storytelling. Have fun with it y’all!

Western Mysteries trailer

2011-05-20T09:03:00.000+01:00

Here's the mini trailer for the first book in my new Western Mysteries series, The Case of the Deadly Desperados! Yee-haw!

Genoa Cowboy Poetry 2011

2011-05-10T17:13:00.000+01:00

Big beer delivery to Nevada's oldest saloon in Genoa

When we arrive at our Virginia City B&B our innkeepers hand us a brochure for the Genoa Cowboy Poetry Festival. What? Another Cowboy Festival? Sheesh! Wasn't one enough? Should we go? Is this serendipity? Or redundancy?

Browsing the Genoa Cowboy Poetry Festival schedule, I see they have a stellar lineup of musicians, including my personal fave Dave Stamey. They also have re-enactors: Don Thompson as Snowshoe Thompson, Dick Clark as Kit Carson, Mike Curcio as Wyatt Earp, etc. They offer fun activities like a Carson River Bird Walk, a saddle making seminar and lots on poetry and writing. Then I see that Mark Twain will be there on the very morning we are due to head back to the San Francisco Bay Area. If we go via the old stagecoach route we will pass through Genoa. That settles it! We're going.

On Friday 6 May we take our leave of our wonderful innkeepers and bid farewell to Virginia City. On the way out of town we take the alternate Truck Road down to Carson City. It's beautiful and deserted. We've had superb weather for our sojourn and timed it just right. (Within days it will be snowing again.)

Genoa is a beautiful little town snuggled at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains. We arrive to see lots of cowboy types, Civil War soldiers and women in hoop skirts. And MARK TWAIN! "Stop the Jeep! I have to get out!" I run up to him and tell him I've come all the way from England to see him. And I have. One of the organizers snaps a picture of us. Then I run to buy the three of us a day pass. $50! Just to hear Mark Twain?

Mary & her derringer

It is totally worth it. McAvoy Layne is a re-enactor who channels Mark Twain. His talk is perfect for us, all about his stagecoach trip west and Mono Lake and Virginia City and all the places we've been visiting. I'm especially impressed that Layne doesn't just quote Roughing It, but has read Twain's letters, too. I will definitely be following him and make a note to visit his Mark Twain Center in Incline Village, Lake Tahoe.

But our $50 family day pass has bought us more than McAvoy Layne as Mark Twain. It gets us two free carriage rides with Buddy from Happy Hoofers in Washoe Valley, who tells me he knows exactly where Steamboat Springs is. It gets us an audience with Wrangler Rich who has a ranch near Carson and promises he'll take us on horseback up into the mountains. We make notes to see Steamboat Springs with Buddy and go riding with Wrangler Rich on our next trip. Maybe the Nevada Gunfighters, too!

The family day pass gets us into the delightful little Genoa museum with it's mock-up of a jail and also of a recorder's office.

Santa Clarita didn't allow guns

Best of all our day pass gets us into the COWBOY FAST DRAW where we meet the fast draw champions of Nevada and get to practice firing real six shooters! At the Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival, the only person allowed a proper pistol was Joey Dillon. Folk resorted to using their holsters for sunblock!

But here in Nevada everybody is packing heat, from Mary with her derringer to the Nevada Gunmen. Anyway, the fast draw guys let us shoot at targets with wax filled Colt Peacemaker .45 caliber cartridges. Yee-haw! It is so much fun. My best time is just over a second. I can do even better but it only counts if you hit the target. The real experts aim for half a second! My mentor is "Chisum" but there are some other fast-drawers there including one who is the spitting image of John Wayne. Imagine getting snapped with "Mark Twain" & "John Wayne" in one morning.

I will definitely be back for the Genoa Cowboy Poetry Festival next year. Hopefully with the first Western Mystery, The Case of the Deadly Desperados.

some great living history re-enactors at Genoa

Nevada gunmen enjoy a beverage

Wrangler Rich and his quarterhorse

Buddy gave us rides in his "vis-a-vis" buggy

"Goes the Wrong Way" & "Hawkeye"

Main Street Genoa Cowboy Poetry Festival May 2011

Buddy drops us at the fab Cowboy Fast Draw

My mentor is "Chisum"

At first "Hawkeye" is unsure...

...but then she finds the fun in Cowboy Fast Draw. Yee-haw!

Nevada champ "Short Keg" Gentry shows "Goes" the ropes

I meet "John Wayne". My joy is complete.

Ghost Fort Churchill

2011-05-08T17:40:00.000+01:00

In 1860 a series of events at a place called Williams Station in Nevada sparked off a battle near Pyramid Lake between Paiute Indians and whites from the area in and around Virginia City. The first battle resulted in the deaths of 76 whites. (see the explanation right) Until Custer's defeat at Little Bighorn sixteen years later this was the largest casualty of whites at the hands of Native Americans. A second retaliatory battle resulted in the deaths of about 160 Paiutes. As a result of these troubles and also to protect the Pony Express, a fort was established on the Carson River along the Emigrant Trail. It was called Fort Churchill after Brigadier General Sylvester Churchill, the Inspector General of the US Army at that time.

During the years my books are set, the presence of soldiers at Fort Churchill was an important aspect of Virginia City life. The fort was abandoned in 1870, only ten years after it was established, and is now a ghost town. Or perhaps we should call it a "Ghost Fort". I wanted to see it because I like to stand in the places my books are set to get a feel for the terrain and atmosphere.

So on Thursday 5 May 2011, my sister "Hawkeye" and my husband "Goes the Wrong Way" and I set off from Virginia City just after 9.00am. Our silver Jeep takes us down Six Mile Canyon. Instead of turning north on highway 50 we carry straight on over, as our innkeepers have advised us, staying on Fort Churchill Road. At first it's paved but soon turns to gravelly dirt. As our innkeepers promised, the road is deserted and beautiful, following the course of the Carson River. Large cottonwoods line the banks and grouse run among the sage brush. We can see the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains away to the west.

At one point we stop and get out to look around. The sun is warm, the breeze is soft, the world is silent. We see grouse and squirrels, ducks and geese. There aren't many bugs up in Virginia City but there are plenty down here by the river. I have to shake them out of my hair before I get back in our Jeep.

Fort Churchill National Park is marked by a flagpole and a gem of a visitors' center. The adobe ruins of barracks, storehouses and other fort buildings blend perfectly into the landscape. We are surrounded by mountains on every side and I understand why they offer star gazing evenings here on special occasions. There would be virtually no light pollution. A small but clear exhibit in the museum shows the layout of the camp and even tells us something about the plants of the region. After the fort was decommissioned, a local resident called Buckland bought it for only $750. He used timber, staircases, etc to build Buckland's Station. He and his wife had five children, all of whom died in infancy or childhood. Their gravestones can still be seen at the cemetery at Fort Churchill.

After a good look around I convince "Hawkeye" to drive us to Pyramid Lake. My iPhone promises the journey will take less than an hour. (My iPhone turns out to be right) The road north through Silver Springs takes us through barren brown hills with virtually no trees. It is hauntingly beautiful. My great, great, great grandparents came from Battle Mountain. I've never been there but the landscape looks similar from pictures I've seen. About 45 minutes later we pass into the Indian reservation and shortly after that crest a rise to see a turquoise lake with a brown pyramid shaped island in the center. This is Pyramid Lake, bigger than Tahoe, almost more barren than Mono. A thousand pelicans flock at its southern end. It reminds me of scenes from sci-fi films of alien planets.

A strange building that looks like steps rises up from the sagebrush horizon. This is a new visitors' center for the lake, designed to look like the pyramid at the center. Unfortunately it's closed, but a sign outside gives us lots of information. We drive up to a village called Sutcliffe but "Hawkeye" and "Goes" are not as enchanted with the lake as I am, so soon we are on the road back to Reno.

Pictures below of Fort Churchill etc.

plan of Fort Churchill

view of the ruins with sign identifying what's what

Visitor's center at Fort Churchill

portrait of Gen. Sylvester Churchill

Captain Stewart's quarters. See the spittoon?

Pyramid Lake visitor center sign

Mountains on the road from Pyramid Lake to Reno

Back to Virginia City

Old Carson City

2011-05-07T22:44:00.000+01:00

Me eating breakfast at the B St B&B

Carolyn Eichin of the B Street B&B is an extraordinary woman. Not only is she a superb cook, preparing the best breakfasts Richard and I have ever eaten, but she's an expert on Nevada history. She and her charming husband Chris told us about a lecture at the Nevada Textiles Archive in Carson City on the morning of Wednesday 3 May. After our exhausting adventure at Bodie it's nice to drive a couple of miles and hear about women's bonnets and men's top hats. I'm not allowed to post any pictures but I get some good ideas for hats to plonk on my characters' heads.

Nevada State Museum

After the lecture we're shown the archives and delight in other period pieces of clothing. Then it's off to the Nevada State Museum, a modern black glass building next to the Carson City Mint. It's a great exhibition with lots of the types of artefacts I love. Some sasaparilla bottles, a stereoscopic viewer with an 1860s photo of Devil's Gate (on the road to Virginia City) and lots of buttons. I'm especially excited about the hundreds of buttons because in the second Western Mystery we discover that P.K. Pinkerton, my hero, is obsessed with collecting things. Like bugs, bullets and buttons. There is also a Smith & Wesson 7-shooter, P.K.'s gun. (see bottom of this blog for pix)

Orion Clemens house in Carson City

After the museum we take the walking tour of Old Carson City. Chris mentioned it as something worthwhile and is it ever! Especially on a beautiful spring day like today. They give us a map at the museum, but even if you didn't have the walking map you can follow the handy blue line painted onto the sidewalk. I especially wanted to see the house Orion Clemens lived in. He was Mark Twain's older brother, and secretary to Governor Nye in the early 1860s.

horsehead hitching post

We also see the house from John Wayne's final film, The Shootist, along with houses belonging to characters who might appear in future Western Mysteries. After the challenge of high-altitude Bodie it is a joy to stroll through the leafy Victorian neighborhood of Old Carson City.

Back to Virginia City in time for tea at the B Street B&B. Carolyn gives me an 1974 dissertation on Police, Water and Fire Departments in early Virginia City so I can get to grips with the structure of the town in the early 1860s. There aren't many places in the world where you can eat homemade tropical fruit macaroons and peruse a scholarly article both provided by the same talented lady. The B Street B&B is simply superb.

P.K. is partial to sasaparilla

Badges weren't known in Virginia City until 1874

P.K. is obsessed with collecting things... like buttons

Stereoscopic viewer with picture of Devil's Gate

A Smith & Wesson 7-shooter just like P.K.'s

Bodie

2011-05-06T15:49:00.000+01:00

Bodie, ghost town of the gold fever era

Ghost town experts will tell you that Bodie is one of the best if not THE best ghost town in the world. Located near Mono Lake on the California Nevada border, it was one of those old mining towns that sparked up like a flame, burnt brightly with gold fever, then flickered and died.

Bodie is off the beaten track. On Tuesday 3 May 2011, it was particularly off the beaten track. Melting snow and mud meant visitors had to walk the last mile and a half of the dirt road just to reach the town. Parts of the road were dry, parts muddy quagmires, parts covered with snow that threatened to slip you up or swallow your foot up to mid shin as it broke through the icy crust. The high altitude makes your heart pump and has you gasping for air. It took us nearly an hour to walk that mile and a half.

Once there we found the town only accessible in parts. Icy streams gushed on either side of the path and parts were marshy with water. Snow drifts huddled up against the northern exposures of crooked houses and buildings. The best footwear would have been Wellington boots as it was slippery, wet, treacherous. Of about a dozen other explorers, only a few wore adequate footwear. A German couple wore waxed hiking boots but I saw one girl in sandals and a young man had decided to go barefoot rather than ruin his shoes.

But it was worth it. This is what Virginia City would have looked like in about 1860, when the tents had given way to wood buildings but brick or stone edifices were still rare. Certain vistas reminded me of Grafton T. Brown's 1861 lithograph of Virginia City, where you can see outhouses and mine equipment behind frame houses on a steep hill. The boardwalk at Bodie was welcome and when we arrived in Virginia City later that day I realized how deadly her steep streets would have been with icy snow and mud on them.

The firehouse at Bodie was especially gratifying because it still had some hose carriages and jumpers inside, plus a row of hanging coal oil lamps. Here are a few more pictures of this amazing ghost town of the gold-fevered West.

Bodie's Firehouse on a snowy spring day

Coal oil lamps in Bodie's firehouse

Bodie's firehouse with Mine Buildings behind

On Bodie's boardwalk 3 May 2011

Richard & Jennifer enjoying a breather

Eastern Sierra Adventure

2011-05-04T17:15:00.000+01:00

Robber's Roost on the 395

The Cowboy Poetry Festival is over and it's Monday morning. Time for our road trip up the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains to Virginia City, where I want to do some more research on my Western Mysteries series of books for kids.

My sidekick is my husband Richard. His Indian name is "Goes the Wrong Way". My Indian name is "Stands in Confusion". So it's just as well that my sister Jennifer is with us. Her Indian name is "Hawkeye". If we were on a wagon train west, "Goes" and I would be the ones travelling in circles and just missing all the waterholes. Hawkeye would be our driver, scout and hunter. She's the one who sees all the little critters on the ground even though she's busy driving.

Which brings us to our transport. It's a cramped rental with a parsimonious front window. Front window size is important for me, because I have to be in the back seat. But Hawkeye rings the car rental agency in Valencia and asks if she can change it. They say yes. She and I drive there to find our proper transport waiting happily. An adventurous little silver Jeep. And nobody else has reserved it. We can have it if we want it. We do.

Every long journey must begin with farewell to family and a fortifying meal. So Hawkeye, Goes and I meet my Santa Clarita family for brunch at the Egg Plantation. What a great place! The English manager gives us our own private area out back and we have a real pioneer meal of three egg omellettes, pancakes and coffee and EVERYBODY IS HAPPY. Bittersweet farewells to those we have to leave behind then off to Adventure in our silver Jeep.

An hour or two later we are heading east on Highway 14. Our first Adventure is spotting Vasquez Rocks off to the north of the highway. Hawkeye is a relaxed sort of person and has never been there before, so we nip off the highway and find it. Vasquez Rocks are famous for being the location of many, many films, especially Star Trek films. Especially the episode Arena, where Kirk battles a Gorn. (left) When "Goes" and I went on the Santa Clarita Valley film tour, our guide was telling us about some funky cafes in the area and I thought he mentioned one called the "Gorn Cafe". When I found out I misheard I was so disappointed. "Gorn Cafe" denied!

After Acton, Highway 14 turns north and takes you past the towns of Palmdale and Acton. Edwards Airforce base is on your right and Reefer City a blur on the left. After Mojave you start seeing Joshua trees and now you are in the desert proper. At Indian Wells near Inyokern we join up with the 395, which will take us virtually the rest of the way.

Red Rock Canyon takes us all by surprise, even Hawkeye. There is nobody else there, just a pair of fishermen packing up their tackle. Like Vasquez Rocks, it's another favorite with Hollywood. Films like Jurassic Park, Westworld and The Mummy were all shot here. One of the fishermen tells us not to miss Lone Pine further up the road. It's the site of a movie museum. We look at Red Rock Canyon, then pile back in our silver Jeep.

Then one of those straight highways right out of the American Myth. An empty ribbon of road stretching to the horizon with desert, mountains, a blue sky... and a Free Ghost town? Whiskey Flats is owned by Roscoe and his bitch Precious. You have to stop and visit his Antique Shop. The sign outside says: Buy Something. Buy Anything! I love the way he labels everything with signs: Hanging Tree, Cowboy Tower, Jail, House, Wagon. He came to say hi even though he's closed on Mondays. An historic plaque tells us this used to be known as Mojave Station.

Lone Pine is a gem of a town on a flat ribbon of highway with the Sierra Nevadas rearing up on one side and farms and ranches on the other. It is another popular spot for movie makers and every September is host to the Lone Pine Film Festival. You will also find the Beverley & Jim Rogers Museum of Film History. Full of posters, props and other memorabilia of B, C and D Westerns and other films made here. It shouldn't have come as a surprise that part of Iron Man was filmed here. Those mountains aren't Afghanistan. They're the Eastern Sierra Nevadas. Jagged, blue, snow-capped, breathtaking.

Iron Man was filmed near Lone Pine, not Afghanistan

After Lone Pine, the 395 chases the exciting West Walker River which jumps and froths and leaps, full of all that icy snowmelt. This is the place to put on your waist high rubber boots and go fishing for trout. We take a quick detour to Mammoth Lakes, which is a big disappointment. It's bristling with hotels and ski lodges... but nary a lake. Quickly back on the 395 to Lee Vining, the town on the shores of America's Dead Sea, Mono Lake. We arrive around 8.00 at dusk. It is cold and crisp up here with snow on the mountains and the scent of pine resin.

There are a handful of motels there but only one place to eat, Nicely's. This will be our stopping place before we press on to Virginia City.

Cowboy Fest 2011

2011-05-03T15:47:00.000+01:00

Wow! Another ripsnorting weekend at the Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival!

Even before the weekend started we took a Tour of Santa Clarita Valley film studios and sights on Thursday 28 April and on Friday evening we attended the Melody Ranch Movie Night, a fun open-air dinner on main street of a western town, followed by a screening of the film "Stagecoach".

My highlights of the weekend proper were the Behind the Scenes Tour of Melody Ranch. We found out where Al Swearengen drank his coffee, where Wu kept his pigs and lots of other fascinating facts about the history of the site.

A new event sponsored by Buckaroo Book Shop (AKA OutWest) were some literary panels. I especially loved the discussion of True Grit, comparing the two films to the book. It was chaired by C. Courtney Joyner who told us things I never knew, e.g. that Charles Portis himself wrote the alternate ending for the John Wayne version of the film!

I was there with my husband Richard and sister Jennifer. We heard some of our favorite musicans, like the Brass Band of California who are always lively, funny and accurate. (I got some tips about 1860s Music Hall traditions.) We also managed to catch Wylie and the Wild West and the Hot Club of Cowtown. I missed Sourdough Slim and his saw-playing sidekick, but Richard and Jennifer loved them.

It was great to meet re-enactors like the Buffalo Soldiers and Ann Dinsdale, (above), who was spinning and weaving on the porch next to Sheriff Bullock's house.

The merchandise was another highlight, too. I was tempted by a coyote pelt, but ended up buying a beautiful carpetbag from Jerry Tarantino. I can use it to carry my spittoon to school events and literary festivals when I promote my Western Mysteries in costume.

Food'n'drink were great, too. There's nothing like drinking coffee from a tin mug and eating peach cobbler while listening to Don Edwards over on the Main Stage.

It was great to meet some old friends and also to make new ones. I've never been anywhere as friendly and fun as the Cowboy Festival. Here Here are some pictures to give you an idea of the fun we had! Yee-haw!

Punk cowboys were in evidence!

John Hustead lassoes us!

Wild Bill Hickock got himself a Lady friend!

Scrimshaw Rick shoots, skins and makes his clothes himself!

Some people were totally authentic!

But everybody had a great time. Can't wait till 2012... Yee-haw!

Melody Ranch Movie Night 2011

2011-05-01T16:17:00.000+01:00

Last year (2010) my faithful sidekick Richard and I had a great time at the Melody Ranch Movie Night. It's part of the Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival my husband and I are attending. This is the one weekend a year you can tread the streets of Gunsmoke and HBO's Deadwood. As we're back at the festival we signed up for this year's movie night, Friday 29 April 2011. Once again, we had a great time.

Last year we got rides to and from the shuttle pick-up point thanks to the kindness of strangers. This year, too. Show cowboy John Hustead gave us a ride there in his pickup truck and Agua Dulce residents Paul and Carrie Riley gave us a lift back. Thanks, kind strangers who are now friends!

Last year we got a thrill arriving on the streets of "Deadwood" at sunset. Same thrill this year.

Last year we met some great Western movie fans. Some in costume, some not. Among them was western reporter Mark Bedor who told us to go to White Stallion Dude Ranch in Arizona. This year we were able to tell him we had followed his advice!

Last year I bought a fancy fringed buckskin jacket made by Tribe. This year I wore it and got lots of compliments. That jacket is a great ice-breaker.

Last year we ate some delicious food: salads, fried chicken, roast pork & beans, plus coffee in a souvenir mug. Same this year: the food was excellent.

Last year we watched "High Noon" after a fascinating introduction to the film. This year we saw "Stagecoach" after hearing an original ode to John Wayne, composed and recited by Larry Maurice.

Last year we enjoyed the comments, applause and laughter of a lively crowd. Same this year. Especially some of the comments offered up.

2011's Melody Ranch Movie Night was a great night out. Just like last year. Only one small fly in the ointment: it got durned chilly sitting out there on the Main Street of Deadwood. But you pays your money and you takes your chances. Next time I'll bring something to keep me warm. Now what was the cowboy version of a hot water bottle?

Santa Clarita Films

2011-04-30T00:13:00.000+01:00

This year the Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival offered a new event - the SCV (Santa Clarita Valley) Film Tour.

Santa Clarita Valley, on the outskirts of LA, is like Hollywood's back yard. It has been used for films since the beginning of the film industry in Southern California. Some have even dubbed this area "Newhall-ywood". (Newhall is one of the several towns that make up the city of Santa Clarita.) The 55 of us who had booked the tour met at Heritage Junction, the old Railway station. There we watched a few clips from movies filmed at the station itself (e.g. Frank Sinatra in Suddenly, Charlie Chaplin in The Pilgrim and John Cusack in The Grifters) as well as scenes from the surrounding area. The most popular clip was that of Kirk fighting a Gorn at Vasquez Rocks, from a Classic Star Trek episode, Arena. After the clips, we filed out to the waiting bus, popping our tickets into a spittoon & getting a brown bag snack in return.

Our guide was E.J. Stephens, a knowledgable and enthusiastic lecturer from the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society. We spent an hour at the NCIS set at Valencia Studios then another two hours driving around the hills while E.J. pointed out features of interest.

Here are fifteen fascinating facts I learned from the tour:

1. Apart from Melody Ranch (the venue of the Cowboy Festival) there are dozens of other film ranches and studios dotted around Santa Clarita: Valencia Studios, Blue Cloud Ranch, Sable Ranch, Disney's Golden Oak Ranch, Firestone Ranch, to name a few. Many residents are totally unaware of their existence.

2. NCIS is filmed at Valencia Studios. Set designer Lynn Wolverton Parker generously spent an hour showing us the sets and props, which was fun for fans of the series.

3.The final sequence in the very last silent film was shot on the Sierra Highway: Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard walking into the sunrise in the film Modern Times.

4. The hit TV series Justified is not filmed in Harlan County, Kentucky, but right here at Santa Clarita Studios.

5. The high school in Pleasantville is Valencia High School.

6. James Dean possibly ate his last meal at Tip's Restaurant (now Marie Callender's)

7. Some scenes of Twilight (those meant to be Arizona) were filmed in and around the Hyatt Valencia.

8. The Halfway House Cafe (halfway between L.A. and Palmdale) has appeared in so many films that they have a whole page of film clips and stills on their website.

9. The Birds actress Tippi Hedren has a big cat sanctuary called Shambala in the hills. Sometimes you can catch a glimpse of lions on the metrolink train just before it gets into Palmdale.

10. The famous Vasquez Rocks are named after a bandit who hid out there for a while. He was later hung.

11. The man in the Gorn suit is named Bobby Clarke and still lives in Santa Clarita.

12. There is a gibbon preserve up in the hills near Vasquez Rocks.

13. Steven Spielberg filmed most of his first movie, Duel, on the roads around Santa Clarita Valley. At the end of the film, the demon truck falls over dramatic cliff at Mystery Mesa on Agua Dulce Movie Ranch.

14. Mystery Mesa has also featured in Iron Man, Thor, etc. According to E.J., it was saved from development thanks to the presence of "sea monkeys", an amazing type of brine shrimp that can lie dormant for years until water is added and they revive. If a film-maker ever needs a handy cliff, that's the place to go.

15. Beale's Cut (above) was is a deep cut in a pass made by Phineas Banning in 1854 as part of a road he built to provide service to Fort Tejon. Originally made for real stagecoaches, it appears in the 1939 John Wayne film Stagecoach and many others. Today it is on private property.

Thanks to E.J., his wife Kimi, Lynn Wolverton Parker, the organizers at the Cowboy Festival and the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society for a great tour!

Richard and Caroline at Valencia Studios

Sweetgrass

2011-04-19T09:38:00.000+01:00

This is my Western decade, and I'm embracing it in every way I can. That's why my ears pricked up when I heard one of my favourite film podcasters praise a documentary about sheep farming in Montana. Then last week I went to the Renoir Cinema in Bloomsbury to watch Meek's Cutoff and they showed this charming trailer for the film that had piqued my curiosity last year: Sweetgrass.

The scenes in the trailer are the opening scenes of the film and that is what brought me back to the Renoir three days later for a screening of Sweetgrass followed by a Q&A with one of the filmmakers. Lucien Castaing-Taylor is a thoughtful, bearded Englishman now based out of Harvard. He introduces the film by warning us that we are in for two hours of sheep with no talking. In fact the film is well under two hours and there is plenty of dialogue between the two main shepherds. But yes, it is mainly watching sheep from the time of shearing through lambing through taking them up into the mountains for the summer and then bringing them back to a holding pen near the train tracks, so they can be shipped off for slaughter.

One of my favourite scenes can be seen in the trailer. In the farmyard, the shepherd rises up on the horizon and calls his sheep. They slow down, turn, one or two of the most clued-up start towards him. Soon a great, woolly, bleating, adorable mass of them flock after the shepherd. Ah. Bless. They know his voice. Just like Jesus says: "My sheep know my voice." Oh, wait. There's a tractor behind them, urging them in the right direction. Lol.

As they swarm after him, the sheep baa enthusiastically and loudly. There is something wonderful about the sound of sheep. They say "Baaa!" but they say it just like a human. It is comical and endearing.

It's no wonder that in the New Testament, 23.5% of Jesus's parables (my guestimate) have to do with sheep. We identify with them. We like them. They are woolly headed, thick and usually hungry. They like to clump together. But they can be ornery critters and spread out, when the mood takes them. Just like us.

In the Q&A after the film, Lucien is his own worst critic. He says the first 20 minutes of the film are the best. They are, but there are some gems in the following hour or so. He says the sound is too rich, dense, textured and dramatic. I think he's wrong on that score. The sound is wonderfully done. Especially when he shows us stupendous wide angle vistas but we can hear John grunting, muttering and urging his horse Jake to "watch your step". And the intense sounds put us right there in the Beartooth Mountains.

In a throwaway comment, Lucien mentions that the shearing scene is distressing for the viewer. Again, I disagree. You can clearly see that the sheep quietly submit to the firm, confident grasp of their shearers. There is something wonderful about seeing the shaggy outer layer sheared off; each swipe leaves a textured track and the sheep look like courdouroy when they're pushed out into the watery spring sunlight. Then the filmmakers poignantly cut to a shot of the newly-sheared sheep standing miserably in a spring snowstorm and the camera holds on them for several minutes. They do not complain, but one of them looks accusingly out at us. That's the distressing scene.

Some of the questions the audience put to Lucien were about the two main shepherds, craggy old John and peevish Pat. Lucien almost batted aside the question, saying he wanted the focus of film to be on the sheep, not the shepherds. I'm with the filmmaker on this one. The humans are prosaic. It's the sheep that are poetic.

People don't usually identify with cattle (unless we're on a crowded tube train) but we do identify and empathise with sheep, and this gives the whole idea of a Western "cattle drive" a new twist. Instead of identifying with the "cowboy" we identify with the critters they are herding. We are the flock being driven, trusting that our shepherd will be patient and loving like Jesus, not angry and frustrated like Pat, who at one point descends to a profane rant that would have Deadwood's Al Swearengen blushing. Pat is tired and bored and sick of sheep and his knees are giving out. At one point this middle-aged man makes a mountaintop phone call to his mother and nearly dissolves in tears. It's not pure self-pity: he's upset because his beloved sheepdog has bleeding paws and his horse is nothing but "ribs and bones".

The myth of the Western is the myth of freedom and choice and the loner riding off into the sunset. And as you watch Sweetgrass you realize that's just what it is: A MYTH. This compelling film shows us that the reality of herding cattle or sheep (or whatever) is that it is a kind of prison. You can't just take off and ride west when you're looking after a flock of critters who depend on you. Sometimes you can't even get a phone signal.

Dirty 21-Mile House

2011-04-15T20:30:00.000+01:00

In 1852 a man named William Host built a tavern on the stage route from San Jose to Monterey. The same year he sold it to a certain William Tennant, and he became landlord of the 21-Mile House, so-called because it was 21 miles south of San Jose. You can find a marker of this historic site on the NW corner of Tennant Ave and Monterey Hwy in Morgan Hill. According to the plaque:

This famous tavern and stage stop was located 21 miles from San Jose on the road to Monterey. The 21-Mile House was built in 1852 by William Host beneath a spreading oak that later was called the Vasquez Tree. The house was sold to William Tennant in November 1852. Now destroyed, this stopping station was a place where horses could be changed, fed, and stabled, and where tired and hungry passengers could refresh themselves.

One famous visitor who refreshed himself at the 21-Mile House was William H. Brewer (right, in the chair), a California state geologist who went up and down California recording details of life and landscape between 1860 and 1864. His journal is called Up and Down California in 1860-1864; The Journal of William H. Brewer.

Brewer and his party stayed at the 21-Mile House three times, each time camping out rather than staying inside the tavern. Brewer's entry for a blistering May evening in 1864 reads:

We got to the 21-Mile House and camped under the old oak trees. We had camped there before, once in ‘61, and again in ‘62. The spot seemed familiar and awoke pleasing memories, and that night, on the ground under the trees, sweeter sleep came than had for many a long night before...

Another visitor, Alf Doten, was less impressed. Arriving one October night in 1862, he and a friend dined and slept in the tavern. The next day, Doten gave it a scathing review in his private journal:

Oct 3 1862... got there at sunset - put up there – got a dirty supper – served up in a dirty manner, on a dirty table, in a dirty house, by a dirty waiter – when bedtime came, we turned in to two dirty little beds, in a dirty little room & slept cold, not having enough bed clothes, & fleas & bedbugs giving us Jesse – waked up an hour or two before daylight from the cold – some ½ doz other travellers there, all in the same uncomfortable fix - all got to shouting to each other and "carrying on" - no more sleep...

Oct 4 1862 ... Rose very early - after dirty breakfast, paid our dirty bill of $5.00 & left - won't stop there again, I guess...

But in April of 1863 Alf was passing through again, and had no choice but to give it a second chance. Apparently his experience this time was more pleasant, probably due to the fact that his musical talents were appreciated:

April 29 1863 ... After breakfast I started for Fred Lucas's - rode Kit with banjo rolled up in my overcoat & lashed behind saddle, carpet bag ditto - led Georgie ... couldn't ride Kit very hard on account of her being heavy with foal - stopped occasionally on the road to let her have a bite of green grass & cool off - at 6 PM I arrived at the "21 Mile" house & put up for the night... after supper, at request of Mr Tennant, the landlord - I gave them some banjo and songs in bar-room...

April 30 1863 ... My bill was: horses 75¢ each - $1.50 and 2 meals $1.00 & a bed 50¢ - Total $3.00 - left about 8 1/2 oclock...

But in May of the same year he found things 'dirty' again:

May 9 1863 ... at 2 PM arrived at 21 mile house - got dirty dinner, served up in dirty manner by Miss Maggie Tennant in a dirty dress & frowsy hair - knew me - Had quite a chat together - Took me into parlor - got me to write off the words of "Open thy lattice to me" for her - I rode on...

A Starbucks now stands in the place of the tavern.

Rango Cheatsheet

2011-03-05T20:34:00.000Z

Rango "Cheatsheet"! Impress your friends & family by identifying these film references in the new film Rango!

Breaking the 4th wall: characters use forefinger to draw a square (the "fourth wall") no less than three times in the film. Also, lots of self-conscious screenwriting terms & phrases like "Every story needs a hero", "What our story needs is conflict", "It is metaphor", etc.

Here are the film references I spotted starting from the beginning:

Cat Ballou/Blazing Saddles: musicians singing story are visible to us and to the players in the film.

Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas: when Rango is flung against a windscreen

Big Lebowski: Chameleon/rock creature sounds like Jesus Quintana ("dios mio!")

Sergio Leone's "No Name" Trilogy:
(Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More & GB&U)
Spirit of the West = The "Man with No Name" i.e. Clint Eastwood
Rattlesnake Jake = Lee van Cleef
Good, Bad & Ugly (GB&U) = bird's cry used to bleep swear word
Once Upon a Time in the West = squeaky windmill from opening sequence

Django: the gattling gun in Rattlesnake Jake's tail

Star Wars IV: visual echoes of Mos Eisley Cantina in the Saloon
ALSO the fight in canyon is like final Death Star canyon sequence

Jabba the Hut (Star Wars IV) & Buford the Barkeep (Rango)

True Grit: Rango calls little girl Priscilla "Little Sister"

Jurassic Park: dinosaur/bird uncovers someone on the toilet

Chinatown: Ned "The Mayor" Beatty mimics John Huston's villain AND
Chinatown: theme of water in desert, drowned man in desert, etc...

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: hero is a fraud

High Noon: hero discards badge/star

Apocalypse Now: bats/helicopters fly out to Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries"

I have heard there are also references to Ghostbusters, Planet of the Apes & Deliverance. (But I didn't get those...)

Scandal in Frisco! (1884)

2011-02-07T15:17:00.000Z

from The San Franciscan March 1, 1885:

A woman passed along Kearny street, one afternoon this week, who attracted a good deal of attention.

People did not turn and look after her because she was very beautiful, famous for her genius, notorious for her misdeeds, or because she was doing anything unusual. She was just walking along on the proper side of the pavement, like the rest of the people. Her face was far from handsome, and not by any means bright. She was past the age when men compete for the favor of her attention. Yet this unknown, middle-aged, commonplace woman drew as much notice as if she had been a great actress or criminal.

She wore trowsers.

(Joseph T. Goodman, from The Sagebrush Anthology: Literature from the Silver Age of the Old West)

1860s Minstrel Shows

2011-01-19T17:59:00.004Z

I've been prospecting for primary source accounts of Minstrel Shows in the early 1860's... Here are a couple accounts lifted from Alf Doten's journals.

Sept 18, 1861- [San Francisco] Stephen & I went to Tuckers Academy of Music this evening - a sort of free and easy place - no ladies there - pretty good house - about 500 present - women waiters carrying round drinks cigars, &c that were ordered, among the audience - a long, varied and amusing performance - commenced with the male & female minstrels - 16 of them in all - Only 2 of them blacked, the tambourine (Walter Bray) and bones - ladies all in short skirts and tights - guitars, flutes, banjos, violins, &c - songs & grand chorus - jokes, conundrums &c - curtain fell - then followed lots of dancing, and songs, by single performers - pas de deux &c - whole wound up with a very laughable burlesque, entitled Norton the 1st or the Emperor of a day...

Oct 20 1862 - arrived at San Francisco a little after 11 oclock... Went up to Cofrans for supper - Hadsell there also - after supper he and I went to the Bella Union - full house - good company - male & female minstrels, about a dozen of them - Ned Buckley as "Brudder Bones" was the only one that was blacked up - gave us lots of songs, ballads, conundrums, fancy dances &c - Grand walk around - J H O'Neil gave us some of his No 1 jig dancing & the girls showed considerable leg - especially Miss Amanda Lee, who showed a splendid pair of the finest fat legs I ever looked at - in dancing she showed them completely up to her hips and we could see almost everything...

Sunday 14 Dec 1862 [San Francisco?] - At 7 oclock went to the "Athenaum" - in Stark's Theatre - free & easy - crowded house - 2 girls waiting upon the crowd with liquors, cigars &c - 2 & 4 bits admittance - Frank Medina & Gus Carl proprietors... jig and hornpipe by little Frank Medina, son of tother Frank - only some 8 or 9 yrs old - National song by Mrs Thomas - "We know no North, we know no South" - whole concluded with very laughable farce called the "Persecuted Dutchman" - Audience were well-pleased, and threw money upon the stage to Miss Paullin, also to little Frank, when they danced solo...

May 21, 1863 [San Francisco] evening I went to Gilbert's Melodeon - male and female minstrels &c ... songs, music, choruses, jokes &c - Johnny De Angelis & Joe Murphy were blacked up - Grand medley walk around - best I ever saw - overtures, ballads, solos &c - Farce of the "Two Gregories" - whole concluded with the comic ballet of "the Vivandiere" - between pieces Md'lle Fleury, a French lady of fine operatic talents, appeared and sung, in all four ballads - "Napolitaine," "Don't let the Roses Listen" in English and two others in French - sings splendidly but speaks very poor English - The dancing was best I ever saw - Miss Lotta [Crabtree] is an A No 1 jig dancer but the comic little capering rogue of the evening was Jennie Worrell - She beats all I ever saw in her line - she danced some very comic, dashing, rattling, capering jigs and sung several comic and Irish songs - The whole performance was highly satisfactory and all the fun one could ask for one evening - No vulgarity...

Dec 26, 1863 [Como, Nevada] Evening performance Bryant & Case's minstrels - our troupe - doors open at 7 1/2 oclock - Martin & I played big drum, cymbals & fife in front of door half an hour - full house - 50 cts a ticket - lots of ladies present - at 8 oclock curtain rose - 8 of us on the stage - Cross's hall - Overture - sang several songs - plenty of gags, jokes, conundrums &c - Walk around by the company - I led the whole performance with violin - Lindsay played 2nd violin - Andrews did banjo a little - bones & tambourine - part 2nd, I & Lindsay were in the orchestra - solos, overtures, songs & dances, & little funny acts - were much applauded throughout the entire performance - Martin the Wizard followed with his trick of the "magic rings" - then ventriloquism - & wound up with his dancing figures - the benches were then cleared away & we had a few quadrilles &c - I played - Lindsay helped some - we got nothing for it - The whole performance was a perfect success and a decided hit ... had terrible time washing black off tonight -

above: Martin the Wizard and his "magic rings" circa 1863

Mark Twain at work

2011-01-05T11:46:00.000Z

I love these two glimpses into Sam Clemens' relaxed way of working. Both are taken from notes to the online collection of letters at the Mark Twain Project.

Mr. Clemens was a believer in personal comfort while at work. On hot days in particular he cast aside formalities—and a considerable portion of his clothing as well. At the outset he bought a comfortable lounging chair with a writing board hinged on to the arm, and it was no infrequent sight during the summer to find him nestled cosily in that chair, a pipe in his mouth and only a negligee shirt, trousers and socks in evidence as costume. His collar and shoes would most likely be in a waste basket and his hat, coat and waistcoat wherever they chanced to land when he cast them off.
(Earl D. Berry, 1869)

And there was Mark Twain in a little back room, with a sheet-iron stove, a dirty, musty carpet of the cheapest description, a bed, and two or three common chairs. The little drum stove was full of ashes, running over on the zinc sheet; the bed seemed to be unmade for a week, the slops had not been carried out for a fortnight, the room was foul with tobacco smoke, the floor, dirty enough to begin with, was littered with newspapers, from which Twain had cut his letters. Then there were hundreds of pieces of torn manuscripts which had been written and then rejected by the author. A dozen pipes were about the apartment—on the wash-stand, on the mantel, on the writing table, on the chairs—everywhere that room could be found. And there was tobacco, and tobacco everywhere. One thing, there were no flies. The smoke killed them, and I am now surprised the smoke did not kill me too. Twain would not let a servant come into his room. He would strip down his suspenders (his coat and vest, of course, being off) and walk back and forward in slippers in his little room and swear and smoke the whole day long. Of course, at times he would work, and when he did work it was like a steam engine at full head...
(from “How ‘Innocents Abroad’ Was Written,” New York Evening Post, 20 Jan 1883)

above: Mark Twain looking very relaxed indeed!

Western Road Trip movies

2010-11-23T21:17:00.000Z

If I were to compile a mini film festival for our recent Western road trip it would include these films:

for White Stallion Dude Ranch near Tucson, AZ:

City Slickers (1991) about tenderfeet at a Dude Ranch

City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold (1994) more of Mitch, Norman & sore bottoms

Backlash (1956) to remind us of the landscape we rode through

Tombstone (1993) filmed in and around Old Tucson Studios, which we loved!

for Sedona, AZ

Broken Arrow (1950) scenes filmed at Cathedral Rock in stunning Sedona, AZ

for Oatman, AZ

How the West was Won (1962) the quirky Oatman Museum was in this film

for Kingman, AZ

Two Lane Blacktop (1971) classic road trip movie filmed at Kingman, Arizona

for the Grand Canyon, AZ

Grand Canyon (1991) about what matters in life with a final scene at the Grand Canyon

Edge of Eternity (1958) you can still see wrecked car at Guano Point, West Rim of the canyon

Thelma and Louise (1991) another dramatic final scene at the Grand Canyon

for the Hoover Dam, AZ/NV

Viva Las Vegas (1964) this fun Elvis film has scenes at Hoover Dam as well as Las Vegas

for Las Vegas, NV

Oceans 11 (2001) a little less conversation, a little more action!

for Death Valley, CA

One Eyed Jacks (1961) Marlon Brando in Death Valley

The Law & Jake Wade (1958) so-so western with good scenes in Death Valley

Zabriskie Point (1970) wacky hippie film with scenes in Death Valley (including Zabriskie Point)

for Yosemite, CA

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) opening scenes: Captain Kirk climbs El Capitan

Spittoons!

2010-11-21T16:40:00.000Z

"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."

Only a century and a half ago things were very different in America. If you go to a museum or a restored shop like the excellent Village Store in Woodside, California (right) you'll find lots of mysterious objects. Would you recognise a carpet-beater, a butter pat, a washboard or a button-hook? Probably not, but your great great grandmother might have used these objects every day. Would you know what to do with a bullet-mould, a powder horn, hard tack or a dipper? Your great, great grandfather would have!

One of the strangest artifacts you might see is a small copper or earthenware basin on the floor. Some of these are chamber pots (portable toilets) but the brass ones (and the ceramic ones with a funnel-type hole in the tops) are spittoons.

What is a spittoon?

In the 19th century, chewing tobacco was extremely popular in America. Instead of smoking tobacco in a pipe (fiddly), lighting up a cigar (expensive) or rolling a cigarette (effeminate) lots of westerners chewed tobacco.

It was sold in bricks or twists (right) and some stores had a chopper so you could order as much or as little as you wanted.

To get a nicotine buzz you would place a small amount of tobacco in your mouth between gum and cheek and let it stew. Although it's called "chewing tobacco" you don't necessarily have to chew it. The drug in the tobacco leaf gets into your blood system from just having the chaw in your mouth. It made you salivate but you didn't swallow or you would be sick. After you had the piece of tobacco in your mouth for a few minutes, you would spit it out, along with the yellow brown saliva.

In the 1800's, there were spittoons in almost every public place. Men would spit into them - sometimes missing and hitting the floor or wall around them. My mother remembers the smell of Bakersfield City Hall in the 1940's where there were still spittoons. She says the smell was rank and revolting. She also remembers when some private houses had spittoons. One hostess used to put paper on the walls and floor around the spittoon in case the spitters missed!

When a spittoon was full of smelly yellow-brown spit, some unfortunate person would have to take it outside to empty it. Some spittoons had a hole in the side for pouring out the accumulated spit. Others had the simple hole at the top. You poured it out the same way you poured it in.

At the Mark Twain exhibition at the Museum in Angel Camp, Calaveras County, I spotted a famous type of spittoon. This is large and made of glazed brown ceramic. It has a funnel-shaped hole on top. But it also has a triangular hole at the side for pouring out the spit. This is the same type of spittoon archaeologists found in Virginia City underneath Piper's Saloon. I showed it to the woman who was working at the museum that afternoon. She didn't realise it was a spittoon even though her boyfriend has been chewing tobacco since he was fourteen. He doesn't use a spittoon. If he's outside, he just spits on the ground. If he's inside, he uses a coffee cup. Ew.

When I did a bit more research, I found out that over FOUR MILLION American teenagers chew tobacco today. Yes, today. In the 21st century. Many of them think it's less dangerous than smoking but as this excellent article tells, it's not. Chewing tobacco can give you sores, tumors, and even cancer.

I hope P.K. Pinkerton, the hero of my new Western Mysteries series, never starts chewing tobacco.

Kirk & Spock at Yosemite

2010-11-15T01:34:00.000Z

We are staying at the wonderful Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite, because I hope to set one of my books here.

Built in the late 1920s of stone, wood, steel and glass, it's like a wonderful country club set in the middle of some of the most stunning scenery in the world. I love primitive abstract art and this place is heaven for me. There are Turkish kelims on the walls, baskets in glass cases and Native American inspired designs on the ceilings and mantlepieces.

With its with massive open fires and a lofty dining room a hundred feet high the Ahwahnee feels like the lodge of a millionaire trapper. There are over 100 bedrooms as well as fun communal areas including secret retreats like the Mural Room. This is where I sipped hot chocolate early one frosty morning and watched the deer wander by. There are bears around here, too, and warnings everywhere not to feed them or leave even an empty potato chip packet in the car.

"Do you ever have bears come in here?" I ask a female member of staff who is watering the plants.

"Only in summer when the doors are open and they smell food," she replies.

"What do you do?" I ask.

"We shoo them away!"

The hotel is open to the public so you don't have to stay here to enjoy the benefits. Campers and hikers drop by to thaw out in front of one of the many fireplaces or have a cocktail called "firefall" made with chocolate liqueur and chili powder. Yum. (The "firefall" cocktail is inspired by the now defunct practice of pouring coals over the top of Yosemite Falls when it is dry in the summertime. This gave an effect of a waterfall of fire, or firefall. Kids: don't try this at home)

The Ahwahnee has hosted many famous people from Queen Elizabeth to JFK. Robert Redford worked here for a while and Judy Garland sojurned here while working on a film. But most exciting to me was finding out that some of the crew of Star Trek stayed here, too!

In 1988 William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and others stayed in the Ahwahnee while filming some scenes for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. In the opening scenes, Captain Kirk is relaxing by free-climbing the appropriately named El Capitan peak in Yosemite.

Suddenly Spock appears in his hover boots.

Spock: "Greetings, Captain. I do not think you realise the gravity of your situation."

Kirk: "Whoaaaaaaaaa!"

This scene was mainly filmed at Tunnel View, with its vista of El Capitan, Half Dome and Bridalveil Falls. (The guide books all say it was for Star Trek IV, but trust me - a die-hard Trekkie - it's Star Trek V.)

Shatner was involved in writing the script and in this charming film clip he wonders what his subconscious was trying to tell him when he wrote the words Kirk is free-climbing El Cap in Yosemite. "This is the mecca for climbers from all over the world," muses Shatner in the film clip. "Spock asks Kirk why he's climbing this mountain. Kirk says: Because it's there... An answer that fends off the true answer... The mountain is climbed because I think the climber wants to hug the mountain... There is a passionate affair going on between the climber and the mountain."

Bill, I love you, but I think you had one too many "firefalls" at the Ahwahnee that afternoon!

Scalped at the Grand Canyon?

2010-11-12T23:49:00.000Z

On our way from Arizona to Las Vegas, we realize we will be passing close by the western rim of the Grand Canyon, where the new Skywalk has recently opened. Richard and I have never seen the Grand Canyon, so we decide to take advantage of this opportunity. Skywalk is a glass walkway that takes you right over the canyon. Apparently it makes you feel like a bird or a giddy bighorn as you look straight down.

It's on Native American land and lots of people tell us we'll get "scalped".

"They'll charge you $30 each just to park there," says one fellow traveller.

"It'll cost you at least $100 each to visit," says another.

The first traveller is wrong, the second is about right. But it's worth every penny. And hats off to the Hualapai nation for doing something apart from opening another casino on reservation land. The first delight is the drive from Kingman to the Grand Canyon West. The road is deserted two-lane blacktop for most of the way. We glide through arid desert with Joshua trees and dramatic rock formations. For about 5 miles the road is rough but they are working hard to pave it and soon it will be smooth and easy.

It takes us maybe 90 minutes and we arrive at a strange white pod. A guard tells you where to park. You go to the pod and buy your ticket. For $45 you get the Skywalk, a shuttle to Guano Point and an optional free excursion to the Hualapai Ranch with a cowboy lunch included.

The shuttles are big air-conditioned buses spaced about 15 minutes apart, so no site becomes too congested. We are here on a Sunday in November. Sunday is actually a good day to visit. It's one of their quiet times, because most of their visitors are from Las Vegas and tours usually leave on Saturday and arrive on Sunday.

Richard suffers from vertigo and opts not to do the Skywalk, but there's plenty for him to do while Jennifer and I step over a 4000 foot precipice. He visits an Indian craft shop and finds me a medicine bag, one of the things I wanted to find on this trip. There are also replica Indian dwellings that you can go into.

Jennifer and I put our backpacks, purses, cameras and binoculars in the free lockers provided and go up a ramp to the Skywalk. They give you little paper slippers to put over your shoes so you don't scratch the surface. This is the same reason you can't take your camera or binoculars. People might drop them and make the glass less transparent.

For me, the giddiness comes not from looking straight down, but from the view out over the rail at the Colorado river miles below, and a helicopter the size of a gnat flying along it. If you have an extra $70 per person you can take a helicopter ride from here. They take off almost every ten minutes... and this is a quiet day!

We catch the shuttle bus to Guano Point five minutes away, and I find this even more breathtaking than the Skywalk. It's almost deserted and there is no rail at all on the precipice. You could plunge right over if you wanted. A pair of ravens are soaring and diving above the void and brave souls peer over the edge to see the the rusted remains of a car sent over the edge for a movie (not Thelma and Louise).

You can have a coffee here at Guano Point, and there are restroom facilities as there are at the Skywalk.

To get to the Ranch you go right back to the ticket pod and catch a different bus. It takes less than ten minutes and brings you to a fun replica Western town with humorous signs and gravestones in the cemetery. At the Trading Post we have a lunch of chicken, corn on the cob and coleslaw (you can have ribs and baked potatoes if you like) and iced tea or soft drinks. The lunch is mediocre but it's a fun setting.

After lunch, the three of us wander over to a card dealer. I want to ask him about the finer points of Faro, a popular card game in the period my books are set. But it turns out he is more than a dealer. He does card tricks. He gives us the best magic demonstration I have ever seen. Jennifer writes her name on a card and he does all sorts of impossible things with it. I'm trying to look for sleight of hand but this guy is GOOD! His name is Mark Crow and he's Vegas quality. No. Better.

Outside in the beautiful November weather (78 degrees and blue sky) I stike up a conversation with cowboy Steve who tells me about a famous celebrity who lives on the Ranch, Norman, the steer from the movie City Slickers! (Read more on my entry Meeting Norman.)

After looking around the ranch a little more, we get the shuttle back to the ticket pod and pick up our car. Las Vegas is only an hour or two away, with the Hoover Dam and its new bridge on the way for a convenient break.

So would I recommend a visit to the Hualapai site of Grand Canyon West?

Definitely. Getting "scalped" was never so fun.

Meeting Norman

2010-11-11T18:08:00.000Z

A week before we set out on our Dude Ranch Road Trip, Richard and I watched City Slickers. It's a fun film starring and co-written by Billy Chrystal about three middle-aged men who go on a cattle drive from New Mexico to Colorado and "find themselves". Sadly, it's a bit too crude in places to be a suitable family film, but there are some great lines in it.

For example:

City Slicker One: We're doing great, guys! We're driving them!
City Slicker Two: Ah, that's perfect! We're lost but we're making good time!

Or, after a leather-tough cowboy dies, someone says, "The man ate bacon at every meal... You can't do that!"

Or, my favorite: "Hello boys. I thought I'd mosey on over here. You know, I've never mosied before..."

There is also a great cow in it. Halfway through the drive, Billy Crystal's character, Mitch, has to help a cow give birth. ("This was NOT in the brochure" and later: "Hey! I made a cow!") Although a puppet calf was used for the scene, the scene of a newborn getting to his feet is real. And when the newborn is cleaned up, it's the cutest calf you've ever seen. He has a caramel colored hide and big, liquid, chocolate-brown, long-lashed eyes. Billy Crystal christens him "Norman" and becomes his surrogate parent. At the climax of the film, Mitch risks his life to save Norman. He even takes the cute calf back to New York. Heck, Norman even appears in City Slickers 2!

When we visit the Skywalk at the Grand Canyon, our ticket includes a shuttle to Guano Point, which is also spectacular - and to Hualapi Ranch. You can actually stay in cabins at this ranch and go for horse rides right along the Western rim of the Grand Canyon.

When we get to the ranch on Sunday lunchtime, it is almost deserted. Two "gunslingers" are hanging around, waiting for enough people to justify a little gunplay. I get talking to one called Steve and he tells me there was a famous movie star living here at the ranch. "Only he's retired now," says Steve. "He's quite old, nearly 18."

"Who is he?" I ask, excited. I love movies.

"Did you ever see the film City Slickers?" asks Steve. "Do you remember Norman the steer, who's born on the cattle drive?"

Norman! Norman the cute calf, now all grown up and still beautiful is here on Indian land!

Steve takes me to see him in his private pen. Norman is napping. He looks contented and just as beautiful in old age as he was as a calf.

If you ever get a chance to visit the Grand Canyon West Rim, be sure to mosey on by Norman's pen and say "Howdy!"

Saving Burros

2010-11-11T07:12:00.000Z

"Burros are smarter than horses," says Art DiGrazia of the Happy Trails Wild Horse & Burro Refuge in Ridgecrest, California. "They always know where to find water in the desert, if there is water to be found."

Jennifer, Richard and I left Death Valley at 10.30am this morning. We drove south along the foot of the Panamint Mountains and out past Trona where there is a Borax works still in operation today. As we pass the navy airfield of China Lake, Jennifer spots a sign with the word "burros".

We follow the sign and come to one of the biggest burro refuges in the world. In the last century 49ers went to Death Valley hoping to strike it rich. Many brought their burros. But lots of those prospectors left a few years later - deeply dejected - and didn't bother to bring their burros out; they simply abandoned them. Over the past century a huge feral burro population has grown up in Death Valley as well as other parts of the USA. There are also wild mustangs running wild. The horses and burros have no natural predator and for this very reason they can become too numerous and suffer in the wild.

Art DiGrazia has been helping rescue burros and wild mustangs for nearly 38 years. He tells us the sad story of 64 burros who recently died of thirst in the desert because of a drought. The Happy Trails Wild Horse and Burro Refuge tries to prevent such tragedies. They capture burros, treat them, vaccinate them, brand them (in a humane way) and finally find good homes for as many of them as possible.

Art tells about his work as we watch a cowboy on horseback lead some cute burros to the barn to be freeze-branded. The lucky burros will be adopted by a person or persons who must show they can take good care of them. After a year's probation, the Refuge sells the new owner the burro or wild horse and they live happily ever after.

There are two beautiful black burros from Tonopah, Nevada in a pen with a frisky mustang. In my series I intend to give P.K. a mustang to ride. Those burros are cute but they wouldn't go as fast as that frisky mustang. In the Wild West, you want a fast horse to get away from bad guys.

"Are burros really smarter than horses?" I ask Art.

"You bet," he says.

"I was going to give the 12-year-old hero of my new Western series a mustang," I say to Art. "Do you think I should give him a burro instead?"

"No," says Art. "Mustang."

"Good," I say. "That's what I thought."

But it's nice to hear it from an expert.

For more information on the Happy Trails Wild Horse & Burro Refuge, visit their website www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/wild_horse_and_burro.html

Roadrunner & Coyote

2010-11-10T06:05:00.000Z

Two years ago in Death Valley I had my first encounter with a coyote in the Furnace Creek Inn parking lot. He was less than a car length away looking furtive and blasé at the same time.

Today I have my first encounter with a roadrunner in the same place: the Furnace Creek Inn parking lot. There it is, spotted by my sister Jennifer, also known as "Hawkeye" because she has an instinct about critters and signs.

(If we were 49ers on a wagon train, she would have been the scout. Without her I would have been a pile of bones bleached white in the desert. I never look at signs. She always does.)

'Look!' said Jennifer, as we are backing out of the Furnace Creek Inn parking lot after a quick look at the pool and gardens. 'There's a roadrunner.'

And sure enough, there it is.

The night before Jennifer spotted two coyotes loping across the desert, lit by our headlights.

Later that day we go for an afternoon horse ride out of Furnace Creek Stables. My ribs have pretty much recovered from my four days of horse riding at White Stallion Ranch in Arizona. It's nice to get on a horse again. Hilda is a lovely mare, responsive and good-natured. (I wish I'd had a horse like her at White Stallion.)

The three of us start happily through the dusty late afternoon Death Valley landscape.

Our wrangler, Luke, points out a coyote. Jennifer is the first to spot it. I hope we might see some more, but for the next hour: nothing. No coyotes. No rodents. No birds. The desert is full of dust and silence and lengthening shadows. I love it.

We are almost back at the stables when suddenly our horses are running off the path. My first thought is: 'Maybe we should have opted for helmets...' My second thought is that Jennifer's big gelding, Atlas, bit my mare Hilda on the rump.

'Pull them up!' cries Luke. 'Pull them up!'

Hilda is running toward a fallen mesquite trunk and she is over it before I can react and pull back on the reins. But I am safely over and we are all three still astride our horses. Hilda and the other two horses come to a stop. Our hearts are pounding.

'What happened?' said Jennifer.

'A coyote came out of the sage and spooked Richard's horse, Chief,' says Luke.

'How do you know it was a coyote?' I ask.

'I saw it over my shoulder,' says Luke.

We are all three flushed with excitement from our unexpected and short-lived fast ride.

'Did you see me jump that log?' I ask, still a bit breathless.

'Actually,' says Luke, 'Hilda just stepped over it.'

'Oh,' I say.

But we are all pleased that we survived our few seconds of excitement.

Later that evening, after the sun goes down, we go to a viewing platform near Furnace Creek Golf Club, which Luke tells us is a favorite haunt of coyotes. Once again, Jennifer is the first to spot one loping across a green to join his two friends.

So the tally for the last twenty four hours is Coyotes 7, Roadrunners 1.

Not a Cowgirl

2010-11-05T04:54:00.000Z

White Stallion Ranch is gorgeous but it has proved to me once and for all that I am definitely NOT a cowgirl. Or even much of a tomboy.

I am definitely a City Slicker. A Dudette. A Couch Rider, not a Horse Rider.

I just got passed for a "fast ride" but my ribs were so sore that I released Bailey into the wild.

So instead I opted for the three hour hike up Mesa Verde the following morning. Made the mistake of wearing my boots, which were actually fine for the first hour or so. I managed to avoid the twenty or thirty species of cactus all out to get us. But then we started climbing. The mountain got steep and slippery and our guide Karen (above) told me I'd have trouble going down. It's always harder going down a mountain. I began to have qualms. Then when my left boot started rubbing my heel, I had some more qualms. The other five members of our party (all stiff-upper-lip Brits) said they were happy to go on, but when I saw what we were in for I said: "I don't think I can do this."

Yes, I wussed out.

Totally.

(But here is a secret. Almost every member of our party quietly thanked me afterwards.)

Still, I now know I am better off being a writer in London than a tomboy cowgirl.

Guess that means I'll have to change the name of this blog.

Chewin' Tobacco

2010-11-04T15:04:00.000Z

One of my goals on this Western research trip is to find a spittoon. Why? I think it will be a great way to engage children and get them thinking about how the olden days in Western America were different from modern times. It also has the Ew! factor, which always helps.

When we go to Old Tucson Movie Studios I keep an eye out for a replica spittoon in the gift shops. One of the shops looks as if it might just stock such an item.

"Do you sell spittoons?" I ask.

They don't, but another visitor to the shop - Steve - looks up with interest. He wants to know why I'm looking for such an object. When I tell him, he admits that he chews tobacco. He pulls out a pack of

"What's it like?" I ask.

"Like smoking a cigarette," he replies.

That doesn't help me. I've never smoked.

"What was your first time like?" I ask. "Do you remember it?"

He nods. "I was sick." He pulls out a packet of Red Man. "Want to try some?"

For research purposes, I really should. Generously he lets me take a pinch. It is soft, dark and moist.

"Put it between your gum and your cheek and DON'T SWALLOW," he says. "It might burn a little."

I put a raisin-sized chunk in my cheek. "Is that too much?"

"No, that's fine. That won't kill ya."

It tastes sweet. A bit like what? Licorice? A raisin? A bit of both?

I don't swallow, but when I begin to feel a tingle I go outside to spit.

No spitting on the boardwalk, so I find a dusty place behind a cactus.

For the rest of the afternoon I have a tight head and feel a bit burpy. But luckily I'm not sick.

A few hours later I feel like myself again.

Why anyone would do this, I'm not sure. But at least I can say I know what it's like...

Oh, and I am still on the hunt for a spittoon.

Do I like Riding?

2010-11-03T15:26:00.000Z

Over dinner on our first night at White Stallion Ranch, co-owner Russell True comes around and asks who will be going on the slow ride the next morning. They like all new arrivals to go on this first slow ride so they can assess your proficiency level.

We duly sign up for the first slow ride and also for lessons at 1.00. I guess Mark Bedor's promise that White Stallion Ranch will match you with the perfect horse only if you're not an absolute beginner. If you are a greenhorn your horse needs to train you. On our ride the next morning, my horse stops to tear at creosote bushes, Jennifer's nips at the horse in front and Richard's drags his heels.

But it's wonderful to ride through the desert at 9.00am when it's still relatively cool. This first jaunt lasts about 90 minutes. When we get back our rooms are all clean and made up. Lunch is BLTs and lemonade, then off for our lesson with Virginia. The three of us are together and there's a bit of a wait because she takes us one at a time.

I have been assigned Bailey, a 21 year old bay with a white star on his forehead. He's a trooper but often sighs deeply. He knows I am a dudette. Jennifer gets an ornery sorrel called Mesquite. They have a love hate relationship: Mesquite loves to nibble horses who invade his personal space and Jennifer hates it when he does that. But she decides to stick it out and not request a new horse. Richard has a lovely gelding called Greycloud who has an almost Zenlike calm. "He's a sweetie!" I say. "He's a slug," remarks Jennifer dryly. Whichever way you want to interpret it, Richard and Greycloud look great together.

Following our lesson is an optional outdoor seminar with head wrangler Carol and the prettiest Palomino I've ever seen, a two year old gelding. Carol demonstrates Frank Bell's method of gentle training with its seven steps: 1. bonding, 2. take & give, 3. intimacy, 4. the dance begins, 5. desensitizing, 6. ballet on the ground & 7. ballet in the saddle. She demonstrates all except the last one. It is fascinating to see a real expert bond with a horse. She doesn't just blow in the Palomino's nose, she rubs his eyes, ears and even gums! I'm not sure I'm ready to rub Bailey's gums.

At 4.00pm on Mondays is something called "team penning". The three of us sit on bleachers and watch how it's done. The best team of four includes a ten-year-old boy named Tom from England who's been coming here to White Stallion Ranch for four years. He puts us all to shame.

Over the next few days it's a variation on the same format: Russell comes round charmingly while we're at dinner and puts us down for rides and/or lessons. (It's amazing the way he and all the other wranglers know the names of all the guests. When the White Stallion is full this is about 85 people!) There are other excursions that don't involve riding, like nature walks, hikes and hay rides, but the main point of coming here is to ride.

I'm still not sure how much I like riding; especially after a very slow ride up into the desert on Tuesday afternoon, for wine and cheese. After our second lesson, my bottom bones hurt and the balls of my feet are hot from "keeping my heels down". Most of the others love it, but to me it feels very tedious. (I preferred a nature walk Richard and I did that morning.) But I'll wait till lesson 3 and my first "fast ride" before I decide whether horse riding is something I could learn to love...

Old Tucson Studios

2010-11-02T13:36:00.000Z

It's around noon on Sunday, October 31st. We head south for the Old Tucson Movies Studios. The most impressive cacti - the iconic ones with upraised "arms" - are called Saguaro. They give their name to this national park. Apparently they don't even grow arms until they are 75. Some of them are hundreds of years old. There are at least a dozen other species of cacti on the canyon road. It's a primitive, beautiful landscape. I half expect a band of Apache to appear over the nearest ridge. We are so busy looking out for John Wayne or Clint Eastwood that we overshoot the Studios by a couple of miles.

This turns out to be serendipitous because it's lunchtime and we stop at a cafe called Coyote Pause. It's in a small strip mall which is holding a Doggie Flea Market. You can buy doggie beds, doggie cushion covers, doggie outfits and treats for dogs, etc. Dogs are in attendance, dressed in their Halloween outfits. We have salad and iced tea in a sunny annex, then head back towards the studios.

It's off season, so not too crowded. There are only thirty, maybe forty cars in the parking lot. Main Street of the western town looks strangely familiar. Outside Phoebe's Café, a tour guide called Jeff tells us why this place looks familiar: about fifty famous Western films were shot here. After Jeff's tour finishes, we watch a staged shoot-out in the street and a hurdy-gurdy show in the saloon. Both are good fun.

The studios close at 4.00 and we're on our way out when the mini steam train blows its whistle. It's a kiddie ride but nobody else is around so we furtively climb on. We are the only three passengers. Today is Halloween, so headless horsemen and Freddie Krugers lurk in the shrubbery. They aren't so scary under a blue sky and golden sun. Apaches would be better, but it's a great ride.

A few miles down the road from Old Tucson Studios is the Sonora Desert Museum. Late afternoon is the perfect time to go. The setting sun backlights cacti and trees. A small collection of wildlife is just waking from their siestas. We see two mountain lions, one of whom is playing with his blue ball. A black bear is still groggy from his nap and the mule deer shows us his tail. Inside the reptile house we see lots of snakes, tarantulas and other creepy crawlies. Only the Gila Monster is staying in his burrow.

On the way out a sign warns us not to feed the coyotes.

White Stallion Ranch

2010-11-01T14:45:00.000Z

White Stallion Ranch has a shuttle which can pick us up from our hotel near Tucson airport but not until 1.15. Arghh! It's 9.15 and we have precious hours in Arizona, don't want to miss a minute of it. So we bite the bullet and decide to get a taxi. It'll cost us $80+ but the Ranch has a rental car waiting for us and it will buy us three precious hours.

Our Armenian taxi driver speeds us on the freeway past downtown Tucson and we exit near Twin Peaks Drive. Over a ridge and we are in a desert filled with dozens of different species of cactus. The jagged brown mountains look familiar from a dozen Western movies. We nearly miss the turning down a dirt road. No sign of the ranch, just cactus but it's only about half a mile until we see the corral with horses on our left.

Jackie and Gabriel check us in and Jackie gives us the tour of the ranch. It exceeds my expectations. Stables, pool, shop, a lounge and bar with horse saddle barstools, outdoor and indoor dining areas, landscaped grounds with every cactus and tree species labelled, etc, etc. I love it! Jennifer, Richard and I are sharing a capin. Jennifer gets one part and Richard and I get a suite. But it's OK because her bathroom is bigger than ours. We can open the doors between the two sections if we want, or keep it closed for privacy.

And ah, the smell! Horses! (Though you can't smell them from our cabin.) Today is Sunday: the dude horses' Day of Rest. So all is peaceful. Birds tweet, a donkey brays, and although it's 80 degrees a breeze and the dry air makes it feel like 70.

We've got a black car with an authentic layer of cowboy dust coating it. Jennifer does the paperwork while Richard buys cowboy hat and gloves in the shop. Then we hop in and are off to Old Tucson Film Studios and the Desert Museum...

North of the Border

2010-10-31T14:08:00.000Z

It's 9.00pm, the mercury is nudging 90 degrees fahrenheit... and it's nearly November.

We have just arrived in Tucson, Arizona.

The name "Tucson" – pronounced too-sawn – is the English spelling of a Spanish version of an Indian name meaning "at the base of the black hill". Tucson is also known as "The Old Pueblo". Only 60 miles north of the Mexican border, this state is famous as being the setting for lots of western movies. You know. The ones with dramatic rocks and iconic cactus, like Red River, 3.10 to Yuma (both versions) and Tombstone.

I'm here to research my new series, The Western Mysteries. My books are set in Nevada but we have come here to spend a few days at one of the best Dude Ranches in the world, the White Stallion Ranch.

They say you should always have a goal, so here are five things I hope to achieve while here.

1. learn interesting facts about horses (including how to ride them)
2. learn a few Indian tracking skills (my main character is half Indian)
3. buy a real or replica "medicine bag" like the one my character wears
4. buy a real or replica spittoon for my future school events
5. learn how to kill, skin and cook a prairie dog.

OK, that last one was a joke. I don't even know yet if there are prairie dogs out here. A visit to the Desert Museum should answer that question.

P.S. Sunday morning... Just went for a walk. Lovely sunrise over the mountains.

The Dude Ranch Abides

2010-10-27T10:25:00.000+01:00

This Saturday my husband Richard and I are flying to Tucson, Arizona to spend a few days at a Dude Ranch. The White Stallion Ranch was recommended to me by journalist Mark Bedor. I met him when we were both standing in line for grub at the Cowboy Festival at Melody Ranch, waiting for an outdoor screening of High Noon. Mark told me I absolutely had to visit White Stallion Ranch if I ever got the chance. So now we are.

When I tell friends we're going to a Dude Ranch they mostly know what I mean. But some don't. That got me thinking. Why "Dude Ranch"? The word "dude" makes me think of Bill & Ted, or The Big Lebowski. But when the word "dude" was first coined in the 1870's, it meant a well-dressed (i.e. rich) city-dweller. According to Wikipedia, the King of the Dudes was a gentleman named Evander Berry Wall. (right) I don't know about "well-dressed"... His coat looks like a bell-jar swallowed a kilt and then burped up some clown buttons. But at least his shiny stovepipe hat matches his patent leather shoes.

So a "Dude" is essentially the opposite of a cowboy. And a "Dude Ranch" (AKA Guest Ranch) is where affluent city dwellers go to "get the Western experience". Today in the US, there are over 100 quality Dude Ranches. You can do full-on cattle drives and squat in the sagebrush, like Billy Crystal and his pals in the fun 1991 film City Slickers. ("Hello boys. I thought I'd mosey on over here. You know, I've never mosied before...") Or you can sit by the pool sipping strawberry margaritas and watching horses from upwind. I think the White Stallion Ranch will be somewhere in between.

The folk at WSR are certainly trendy. They tweet regularly and they are gratifyingly active on Facebook. When I asked them if Richard really truly needed boots to ride, they said any leather-soled shoe with a heel was OK, but boots are best. When I asked if he should buy them here in London or at Boot Barn in Tucson, they said buy them in London. Especially after they found out about our trendy boot shop on the Kings Road in Chelsea.

The wryly named R. Soles (say it out loud) sells fab boots designed by Judy Rothchild and others. You can either go to their shop or buy online. I bought a pair of boots there two years ago in anticipation of a Thelma-and-Louise memorial road trip with my sister. Jennifer and I didn't drive into the Grand Canyon, but we did spend an hour file-riding in Death Valley at sunset. We booked a short session at the glorious Furnace Creek Stables. Everyone there was very nice and professional, but the moment I swung up into the saddle, my mustang knew I was a dudette. He stopped to munch tasty sage whenever he felt like it and ignored my firm prompts to get moving. We were only there for a few hours, so the wranglers didn't have time to teach us anything.

Next week, however, I hope to really learn to ride a horse, not just sit astride one in my designer cowgirl boots. Richard is coming, too, and my sister Jennifer will meet us there. To see how the three of us get on, watch this space.

Western Mysteries!

2010-10-15T20:49:00.000+01:00

Virginia City in 1862 is a glorified silver-mining camp on a barren mountain with a landscape like a singed cat. Seething with miners below ground and hustlers above, it’s a deadly place.

When 12-year-old half-breed P.K. "Pinky" Pinkerton arrives in Virginia City – homeless, penniless and hunted – things don’t look good. But armed with a Smith & Wesson seven-shooter and a knack for disguises, P.K. takes on gamblers, dancing girls and desperados.

Pinky’s dream is to work for the Pinkerton Detective Agency in Chicago. But there is so much crime in Virginia City that soon the town has its first detective: P.K. Pinkerton, Private Eye.

Western Mystery #1 - The Case of the Deadly Desperados

Virginia City, Nevada Territory - September 1862:

When desperados kill the preacher and his wife in a small frontier town, their foster child P.K. is forced to go on the run. P.K. must get a valuable letter to the Recorder’s Office before anyone else can get their hands on it. It’s not easy: Virginia City is full of gamblers, hurdy girls, saloon-keepers and gunmen, all of them on the make. But there are possible allies: Sam Clemens, the new reporter for the paper; a gambler called "Poker Face Jace"; a derringer-packing Soiled Dove, and a Chinese photographer’s apprentice named Ping. Will P.K. survive and go on to solve more mysteries? H-ll, yeah! There are sequels.

Sam & Flavius Clemens

2010-09-16T17:18:00.000+01:00

One of Mark Twain's favorite books was Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars. According to Twain's biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine, he carried it around and read it until his very last day.

Near the end of the book, Suetonius tells how the Emperor Domitian put to death many people including his own cousin Flavius Clemens, a man "below contempt for his want of energy." (Latin "contemptissimae inertiae...") In the margin of his well-thumbed copy of the book, next to the name "Clemens" and the words "want of energy", Mark Twain wrote "I guess this is where our line starts."

This is amusing because:

A. Mark Twain's real name was Sam Clemens
B. Mark Twain was famous for his want of energy.

Lazy Jim & Huck from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Buried Alive?

2010-09-07T14:19:00.000+01:00

or "The Case of the Bleeding Corpse"

In the winter of 1861, failed prospector Alf Doten was living in Milpitas, California, trying to be a farmer. The following year he would leave the Bay Area and head for Nevada to give prospecting one last try. He would fail again at prospecting but would end up as a newspaper reporter in Virginia City. Now, over a hundred years after his death, he is moderately well-known as a chronicler of Nevada History. For Alf Doten was a methodical diary-keeper, and the treasure he left was over 75 leather-bound diaries documenting fascinating aspects of daily day life in the old West. They have been edited and published in three big volumes (above) which I first discovered at the B Street B&B in Virginia City. The Journals of Alfred Doten (1849 - 1903)

I have been going through Alf's journals to get period details for my new Western Mysteries. Two days ago, I had reached November 1861 when I came across a couple of entries that chilled my blood.

Nov 5 - Campbell came this AM & got my pick to dig a grave - Miss Abby Nash died this morning around 9 oclock, of typhoid fever... She was 17 yrs old -

Nov 6 - Cloudy - Morning I rode Ben to Peacock's - learned that Miss Nash is to be buried at 10 AM - rode home - hitched Ben & Poncho to wagon - got ready - David and I rode to Peacocks - Took Mrs Peacock & Annie and a gentleman friend of theirs on board - drove to Nash's - friends & neighbors had assembled - Mr Barquay from Berreyessa officiated as clergyman - he read from the Bible, prayed, exhorted & we sang a hymn to the tune of Wyndham - four of us brought out the coffin & put it in Jim Smith's spring wagon - She looked very natural - procession moved to grave which was dug over next the fence on the line between Nash's and Valpy's farms - a very lonely out of the way place - opened the coffin that all who wished might take last look at corpse - her head was not properly pillowed so that in crossing the rough field I heard it knocking against side of coffin, and a large quantity of blood came from the right nostril - I helped lower her into the grave - funeral over - drove round & left our Peacock passengers & drove home - This funeral was got up on the very cheapest possible scale, and cost old Nash very few dimes - quite a saving -

What sent a shiver through me was this: I had always understood that corpses didn't bleed. As I re-read the entries, a few phrases seemed to jump out of the account: "she looked very natural" and "a large quantity of blood came from the right nostril" ... Was the poor girl buried alive in that "lonely out of the way place" where no one could hear her knocking to be let out? A truly horrible prospect.

I immediately sent a tweet to one of my favorite authors: Lee Goldberg, author of Diagnosis Murder and the Monk books. Lee instantly put me on the track of Dr D.P. Lyle, author of Forensics for Dummies. I was unaware that Dr Lyle has a fantastic blog about forensics for crime writers and other such eccentrics. I emailed him and wondered whether I would ever get a reply.

Yesterday evening, I had to go into central London to an event at the British Museum. As I was passing Jarndyce, the well-known Antiquarian Booksellers, a book in the window caught my eye: Premature Burial! I was early for my event so went into the bookshop and asked if I could look at the book. "You can look at it," said the nice shopkeeper, "but you can't buy it. It belongs to the owner." I perched on the edge of a walnut armchair and opened the book. Almost immediately my eyes fell upon this sentence: ‎"Live burials are far more frequent than most people think." Ew!

Sure enough, the book was full of accounts of people buried alive in the 19th century. Many people were so afraid of premature burial that they put clauses in their wills demanding that they be interred with coffins fit out with contraptions like that on the left. You could pull a little handle and a flag would pop up above ground, showing that you had been buried alive.

I was relieved to return home after my event and find that Dr Lyle, (the Forensics for Dummies doctor), had got back to me with a thorough and reassuring reply: "she was not buried alive and she did not bleed but rather this was either a broken down clot from her sinuses or purge fluid."

According to Dr Lyle, Abby Nash "could have had trauma to her face and blood could have collected in the sinuses. Blood initially clots and then begins to break down and separate into a contracted clot and serum. The serum or liquid part of the blood is usually tinged reddish brown in this circumstance and when they alter her position some of this could have leaked from her nose. This would simply be separated blood following the dictates of gravity. Also there is the situation of purge fluids. These appear as part of the decay of the body. This is blackish looking liquid that comes from the nose and often the mouth and has to do with decay of the tissues within the head. These usually appear a couple of days after death since it takes that long for the decay process to get that far. There are circumstances under which this process is sped up. Things like a very warm environment. Another is when someone has an infection. Here bacteria are already scattered throughout the body and therefore the decay process does not depend upon the intestinal tract breaking down first and releasing the bacteria within the bowel into the system. So she would already have bacteria in her bloodstream from her typhoid fever and therefore would decay much more rapidly."

I could rest easy. Poor young Abby Nash died tragically young. But at least she was not buried alive.

If you are of a ghoulish disposition and would like to read Premature Burial, you can do so online.
.
P.S. In the Arthur Conan Doyle 1901 short story 'The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax', a character is narrowly saved from being buried alive by the detective Sherlock Holmes.

Territorial Enterprise

2010-09-03T14:26:00.001+01:00

Critters, Characters & Curiosities from The Western Mysteries

The Territorial Enterprise Newspaper

The Territorial Enterprise was a famous newspaper in the Nevada town of Virginia City.

It was established in 1858 in the town of Mormon Station (AKA Genoa) in the Carson Valley, but moved up to Virginia City in 1860 shortly after silver was discovered on the Comstock Lode. Virginia City suffered from frequent fires and for this and various other reasons the Enterprise moved offices a few times in its first two decades there.

The first office of the Territorial Enterprise was a rickety wooden building up on A Street at the top of the town. We know this from the 1862 Directory of Nevada Territory. We even have a rough idea of what it looked like, thanks to a lithographic drawing by a talented young artist named Grafton T. Brown in 1861. (above) A full page ad in the 1862 Directory tells us that the magazine was published every morning except Sundays, which meant the reporters and printers had Saturday off.

Dennis McCarthy and Joe Goodman were the owners and editors of the paper. Under their guidance the Territorial Enterprise became one of the best-known newspapers in the West. It carried national and local news, mining statistics, advertisements, etc. Frequently - when local news was thin - the reporters filled empty column space with witty stories and tall tales like the ones about the "Demon Frog" or the "Travelling Stones". Some of these stories were pure fiction but because they were printed in a newspaper many people believed them. Later, when readers discovered they had been "taken in" many of them became angry and accused the reporters of being "hoaxers".

In late September of 1862 a dusty 27-year-old failed prospector arrived at the Enterprise to take up a position as a local reporter. His name was Samuel Clemens and he had been promised $25 a week. In those days reporters often used funny or witty pen-names instead of their real names. At first, Clemens signed his articles "Josh". But early in 1863 he tried out the byline "Mark Twain" and it stuck. That is the name by which people know him today. (left: Mark Twain in 1862, before he grew his famous moustache)

Some less-famous writers who worked on the Territorial Enterprise were William Wright (whose pen-name was "Dan De Quille") and Alfred Doten. From the 1862 Directory, we even know the names of some of the printers who worked on the paper, like D.P. Iams and James Richards. Another famous employee of the Territorial Enterprise newspaper was the Chinese cook, Old Joe. Dan De Quille writes that Old Joe did the cooking, and three times each day the whole crowd of "newspaper men" were called out to the long table in the shed to get their "square meal."

Shortly after Mark Twain's arrival in Virginia City, the Enterprise moved offices to a building on North C Street. (Any street above Union in Virginia city is North.) By the summer of 1863, the Enterprise had moved yet again, to a big brick building called the "Enterprise Building" on South C Street between Sutton and Union. This was probably to accomodate a new steam-powered printing press.

By now, the boom times had arrived and the Enterprise's day off had moved, too. Now everybody worked hard on Saturday to get out a special Sunday edition devoted to mining news and other related matters. Everyone was happy and busy. Then, in the spring of 1864, Mark Twain wrote a tall tale that got him into "hot water". He had to "skedaddle" out of Virginia City. Twain went to San Francisco to work for another newspaper, and sometimes he sent articles back to the Territorial Enterprise. But within a few years, he had become a famous writer and a popular lecturer. (above: detail of the newspaper on 8 July 1874, the year before the great fire, shows offices on 24 South C Street)

Twain came back to Virginia City a couple of times over the next few years, but he was long gone by 1875, when a terrible fire burnt down his former workplace. The Territorial Enterprise you see today was built in 1876, several years after Twain's last visit, so he never set foot in this building. However, down in the basement you will find the Mark Twain Museum, full of fascinating items such as printing presses, a desk and even a toilet like the one Mark Twain might have used.

For more info about the Territorial Enterprise, go to the Official Site
And read Myth #101 at the Nevada Observer.

Dysfunctional Detectives

2010-08-16T12:31:00.003+01:00

According to the Pulitzer-prize winning screenwriter David Mamet, "Asperger's syndrome helped make the movies." In his collection of essays, Bambi vs Godzilla, Mamet talks about the type of autism called Asperger's.

According to Mamet, the symptoms of Aspergers include "early precocity, a great ability to maintain masses of information, a lack of ability to mix with groups in age-appropriate ways, ignorance of or indifference to social norms, high intelligence and difficulty with transitions, married to a preternatural ability to concentrate on the minutiae of the task at hand."

Someone once described Asperger's as "mild autism with a startling streak of genius." In other words, many of those with Aspergers are brilliant but socially dysfunctional. A slightly sexier version of Rain Man.

Mamet goes on to say: "This sounds to me like a job description for a movie director." He also points out that Asperger’s syndrome “has its highest prevalence among Ashkenazi Jews and their descendants”, who make up the bulk of Hollywood movers-and-shakers.

Is Mamet joshing us when he claims that Hollywood is run by men with Asperger's? Maybe.

Or Maybe not.

Sometimes Asperger's is so subtle that it's not diagnosed until middle age. A well known case is that of Tim Page, a Pulitzer prize winning music critic who only found out that he had mild version of the syndrome when he was 45. He has written about it in his book Parallel Play: Life as an Outsider and was recently interviewed on NPR. "I didn't suffer from classic autism but something was clearly wrong..." says Page in one interview. "I couldn't tell you the color of my mother's eyes or what a person was wearing last night at dinner, but I'll remember exactly what we talked about."

If Hollywood is dominated by sexy Rain Men, it might explain why some of our most popular fictional characters have certain characteristics which might be called 'autistic'.

Think of Star Trek's Mr Spock (left) and Data. Both characters are popular among high-functioning autistic people. One of the most famous and articulate autistic authors, Temple Grandin, has confessed that she is a fan of Lt Commander Data, the android who tries to understand human behavior.

Then there's the brilliant but anti-social Dexter. His dysfunctionality is due to a traumatic childhood, like Lisbet Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I don't think Salander has Aspergers, but she does meet two of the criteria of someone suffering from that disorder: “high intelligence” and “ignorance of or indifference to social norms".

Sheldon Cooper of Big Bang Theory is the perfect example of a character with "high intellience" but "indifference to social norms". Indifference being the operative word in Sheldon's case.

Best of all are the many detectives who seem to have Asperger's-like qualities. The most famous of these, of course, goes back way before Hollywood.

Sherlock Holmes (right) is a creation of the late 19th century, but is just as popular today. He has several character traits of a person with Asperger's, though Steven Moffatt's clever new Sherlock sometimes lapses into ADHD behavior, dashing about with an almost Dr-Who-ish energy.

Adrian Monk isn't exactly autistic, but as a sufferer of OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) he is a brilliant observer of detail and symmetry but a flop when it comes to interpersonal relationships. There is great comic and tragic potential in a character like this. Do all the best detectives have psychological or emotional weaknesses?

Not necessarily. Columbo is modelled on G.K.Cheserton's apparently ineffectual Father Brown. Whereas Holmes uses his brilliant deductive faculties, Father Brown uses intuition. But like Columbo, his fumbling, bumbling personality lulls criminals into a false sense of security. They may seem to be socially dysfunctional, but they're not.

A detective who is wildly socially dysfunctional and delightfully wounded is the wonderful Dr Gregory House (top of this blog). Like Sherlock Holmes, he is a social misfit with only one true friend. It's been pointed out before that the creators were partly inspired by Conan-Doyle's great detective.

Another modern-day Holmes wannabe is Christopher Boone, the teenage narrator of Mark Haddon's best-selling book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Christopher is a genius at remembering facts and doing mathematical calculations, but he is socially inept and takes every statement literally. Christopher's favorite fictional character is Sherlock Holmes, (in fact, the "curious incident of the dog in the night-time" is a quote from a Sherlock Holmes mystery). Christopher is obsessed with the Victorian detective and employs Holmesian methodology when a neighborhood dog is murdered.

Of all the fictional characters mentioned so far, Christopher Boone is certainly the highest on the scale. Like most people with Asperger's, he can't decode facial expressions and needs guidelines to help him figure out what people are feeling. Christopher has a flat, neutral, toneless voice which comes across as wonderfully deadpan. "He doesn't get sentimental," said Haddon in one interview. "He doesn't explain things too much... It's the voice of person who doesn't feel there is a reader out there. So when you're writing in this voice, you never try and persuade the reader to feel this or that about something."

I've been thinking about detectives with Asperger's because the hero of my new series, The Western Mysteries, is P.K. Pinkerton, Private Eye (below) a 12-year-old detective who is half Sioux and half White, and definitely somewhere on the Asperger's spectrum. Of course, in the 1860's the syndrome had not yet been diagnosed and had no name. P.K.'s 'Thorn' is not being able to determine what people are feeling.
My Gift is that I am real smart about certain things. I can read & write and do any sum in my head. I can speak American & Lakota and also some Chinese & Spanish. I can shoot a gun & I can ride a pony with or without a saddle. I can track & shoot & skin any game and then cook it over a self-sparked fire. I know how to cure a headache with a handful of weeds. I can hear a baby quail in the sage-brush or a mouse in the pantry. I can tell what a horse has been eating just by the smell of his manure. I can see every leaf on a cottonwood tree. But here is my Problem: I cannot tell if a person’s smile is genuine or false. I can only spot three emotions: happiness, fear & anger. And sometimes I even mix those up.

When we're feeling lonely or obsessive or have made a particularly big social gaffe, many of us probably wonder if it's because we are somewhere on the Asperger's scale. I think that's why these dysfunctional characters are so popular, they are like us, only more extreme. I myself often find people completely unreadable. What I wouldn't give to be able to glance at a person and - like Sherlock Holmes - know instantly who they are and what they are feeling! That's one reason I created P.K. Pinkerton.

[The Case of the Deadly Desperados features stagecoach action in the very first chapters. This Western Mystery for kids aged 9 - 90 is available in hardback, Kindle and audio download. It will be published by Putnam's in the USA in February 2012.]

Advice from "Old Timers"

2010-05-01T05:17:00.000+01:00

How do you research the Western genre when you live in London?

Last month my husband and I attended the Santa Clarita Cowboy Poetry and Music Festival. One of the best things about it was meeting lots of other Western movie fans. All of them were friendly and all of them gave us advice about things to do and see and places to visit.

We met Jerry and Sharon over the plaque of Graham Green on Newhall's Western Walk of fame. (Graham Greene played Kicking Bird in Dances with Wolves). They gave us some recommendations. They told us to go to Durango, Colorado and ride in the open car of the Silverton Railroad. (above) "The nearby Indian ruins are stunning", said Jerry. "Like Mesa Verde." They also said we should visit Williams, Arizona. There is a train tour of two days and two nights with all meals included. "And watch out for the natural spike in Sedona, Arizona," said Jerry. "You have never seen red rocks like them."

Sharon's favorite Western film is Murphy's Romance, a rom-com with Sally Field and James Garner. Jerry likes The Shootist, John Wayne's last film. It was filmed partly on the Warner Brothers Western lot (no longer there) and partly in Carson City, Nevada, near the governor's mansion.

Waiting for the shuttle to take us to Melody Ranch Movie Studio's for an open-air showing of High Noon, I got talking to Sampitch Kid, named after a river that runs through Utah. We talked about firing cap and ball revolvers and he told me I should check out the Single Action Shooting Society: http://www.sassnet.com "The closest you'll get to the Old West short of a Time Machine." Dang, that looks like fun! You even get to choose your persona and a period name. Hmmm. Maybe I could be my great grandmother Corinne Prince: schoolmarm, quilter and buffalo-hunter.

Standing in line for grub at the movie night, I got talking to Western journalist Mark Bedor. I told him about my new Western detective series set in Virginia City, Nevada in the 1860's. "So why are you here at the Melody Ranch?" he asked me. "To get a sense of the smell and sound and feel of a western town," I said. "The light, for example. When you walk into a saloon your eyes need to adjust because it's so dim in there." When I mentioned the light, Mark got excited. "Yes," he said. "I recently did Cavalry School and we were riding on the plains of Montana. I've never seen light like that big sky." "Cavalry School?" I said. Mark nodded happily. "I spent a week riding with Custer for Cavalry School. You can't understand it until you've done it." He gave me the link for an article he wrote and told me the website: www.uscavalryschool.com

"But I don't know how to ride a horse," I said.

"You want to ride?" said Mark. "Go to White Stallion Ranch in Tucson, Arizona. They will match you with the right horse and at the end of a week you'll be cantering and galloping." (Horses of the White Stallion)

"I know your books are set in Virginia City, Nevada," he added. "But you should also visit the Virginia City in Montana. And Red Rock, Utah." Mark also recommended some reading: John Gray on Custer, a book called Apauk, Caller of Buffalo by John Willard Schultz and Trails Ploughed Under by Charlie Russell. Mark even took a photo of me in my new buckskins with Richard. (photo by Mark Bedor)

Later in the week I went to an elementary school to talk about my other history mystery series, The Roman Mysteries. The class teacher's father picked me up in Santa Clarita and while we were driving to Chino he told me about Oatman, Arizona, a town named after a young woman kidnapped by Indians. "You can see the real thing there," said Dave King. "Once I went into a saloon to use the facilities and there were old timers there propping up the bar like in those Westerns. You can also see donkeys roaming the streets." Apparently there is an egg-frying contest on July 4th every year. (www.oatmangoldroad.org)

Thanks, "Old Timers", we'll definitely ride the railroad, sign up for a week at White Stallion and visit Oatman!

Top 3 Westerns?

2010-04-26T16:18:00.000+01:00

Which three Western movies do you think might be the most popular among real cowboys and cowboy re-enactors? Go on. Have a guess. Then read on.

I've just spent three days at the Melody Ranch Movie Studio with my husband Richard, researching my new series of kids' history mystery books, The Western Mysteries. This is the 17th year they've held the Santa Clarita Cowboy Poetry and Music Festival and by all accounts it was bigger and better than ever. I chatted to lots of performers, re-enactors and fans and asked most of them what their favorite Western movie was.

I've already mentioned cowboy poets Yvonne Hollenbeck and Pat Richardson in my blog about Cowboy Poetry. Yvonne's favorite Western is Lonesome Dove and Pat's is High Noon. "Gary Cooper was a real cowboy," said Pat. "And they filmed a lot of that film right here on Melody Ranch."

On the last day of the festival, Sunday, Richard and I boarded the trolley at the La Quinta Inn to find a beautiful cowgirl: Miss Catherine Lane. She plays Belle Montana, heroine from dime novels of the 1880's. Her fave Western is The Good, the Bad & the Ugly. YES! That's mine, too.

On the trolley was also a passel of desperados from Tombstone. They are Law Dogs 'N Ladies, a tribute to the movie Tombstone. You'd think they all place Tombstone top but no. Susan plays Calamity Jane. Her fave Western is Quigley Down Under. Tim Fowler is Ike Clanton and his fave Western is Tombstone. Their son Kirk likes Lonesome Dove.

Other fans on the trolley voted: One for Lonesome Dove and one for High Noon.

When we got to Main Street I wandered over to a blacksmith who was personalizing horseshoes. I figured I'd better get one inscribed with the name of the hero from my new series, but blacksmith Wishbone Smith said "P.K. Pinkerton" was too long. While he was hammering out "P.K." on a pony-sized horse shoe, I asked him what his fave Western was. "Lonesome Dove," he replied without hesitation, and proceded to quote Robert Duvall's character Gus. His son's fave Western was Tombstone. I was beginning to detect a pattern here.

David Rainwater the fiddler couldn't choose between Tombstone or High Noon. Lasso expert Dave Thornbury's top flick is Tom Horn and black-clad, bullwhip wielding Doc Durden from Virginia City's is... you guessed it: Tombstone.

There was some great music at the festival: a Civil War Brass Band, Indian flutes, some great rock/blues and of course tons of Western music. Richard and I loved it all. I met Rich Hillworth waiting to hear Celtic Cowboys outside the California Stage on Main Street. He lives near Lancaster and used to drive mule trains across the desert. His fave Western is Lonesome Dove. David Matuszak was selling the "Bible of Western films", A Cowboy's Trail Guide to Westerns, but he loses points by saying Richard's fave Western, Little Big Man it wasn't a Western! David's fave Western is Red River. A fabulously dressed couple named Todd and Holly loved The Big Country and Tombstone, respectively.

Everybody was telling us to get the peach cobbler and bottomless coffee made by the Chuckwagon guys so we got a bowl to share and bought the tin mugs you can refill all day. The cobbler was yummy but the coffee had grounds at the bottom. Now I know why those cowboys in the Westerns always toss the last bit into the sagebrush. We sat at a table with Carol and Dave, who told us about Cowboy Church! It was held that morning at 8.00 and they had some good ol' gospel cowboy worship. Too bad we missed it. They also meet the first Friday of every month at their pastor's ranch in Agua Dulce near the amazing Vasquez Rocks. Carol's fave Western is Tombstone and his is (the newer) 3.10 to Yuma.

By now I was pretty sure of the winner. On our way down Main Street the last time I did a double take. Was that Robert Duvall? Nope. It was Gus Curry. His fave Western? Lonesome Dove of course. He posed for me with the tastefully attired Mary Culver, who loves High Noon. Despite her vote, I think Lonesome Dove was definitely the top Western, followed very closely by Tombstone. High Noon came in a respectable third, according to my very unofficial and random poll.

So here is the answer to the question I posed:

Top Western?
1. Lonesome Dove
2. Tombstone
3. High Noon

The Santa Clarita Cowboy Poetry and Music Festival was fabulous and we will be coming back next year, hopefully with lots of copies of the first book in my new series, The Case of the Counterfeit Injuns!

P.S. I forgot to put up a picture of a delicious couple of other Tombstone re-enactors, bad boy Nathan and hurdy girl Colleen. Nathan wears dark blue glasses with a tiny mirror in one corner so he can see who's sneaking up behind him! (I didn't mention to Nathan that buffalo soldier Victor Williams told me blue sunglasses were worn by those suffering from V.D.) No prizes for guessing Nathan and Colleen's fave Western... But Lonesome Dove still moseys in at the top place.

Cowboy Poetry

2010-04-24T16:52:00.002+01:00

What is Cowboy Poetry?

Yvonne Hollenbeck

I'm in the lobby of La Quinta Inn in Newhall, California, waiting for a shuttle to take me to Melody Ranch open weekend - research for my new Western Mysteries - and I am suddenly surrounded by cowboy poets. Fair enough: the official name of the Melody Ranch and Movie Studio Open Weekend is the Santa Clarita Cowboy Poetry and Music Festival.

So I ask a lady on my right. "What is Cowboy Poetry?"

She is Yvonne Hollenbeck, entertainer, author and 'Cowgirl Poet of the Year'. (http://www.cowboypoetry.com)

"Well," she says, "cowboy poetry talks about cowdogs, horses, the western way of life, in poetry."

'So it's like Country Western music without the without the music?" I ask.

"And without the country," says Andy Nelson, who is sitting behind her. He is a cowboy poet who has the 'Clear Out West' radio show and has written a book called Riding With Jim.

"We like to think our poetry can stand on its own", says Yvonne. "Some times the best song is a bad poem set to music. I'm quoting Sting," she adds.

On my left is Pat Richardson. He writes poetry, does his own illustrations and is a popular performer on the cowboy poetry circuit, along with Yvonne and Andy. He gives me a signed copy of his book Unhobbled.

I flip through the book and my eye falls on a poem called 'Pony Eggs'. Apparently when Pat was a little boy, longing for his own horse, his dad told him coconuts were pony eggs. "You'll notice they got hair and fur on them, and when they hatch out there'll be a pony in each one!" The poem tells how Pat got his 'revenge' many years later.

Another poem called Five Card Draw has this verse:

One night Ben had a full house,
Bet his saddle, spurs an' rope;
Zeke giggled at his foolishness
and raised three bars of soap.

That poem goes on for stanzas until a humorous and bloody ending.

According to Wikipedia, Cowboy Poetry was told around the campfire, with humor, rhyme and tall tales. I think of Mark Twain, and the tall tales that got him into such trouble in Virginia City.

What is surprising to me as I attend the Cowboy Festival is how popular Cowboy Poetry still is. Probably because in America ranching is still a major industry.

Later that day Richard and I are sitting in a sold out tent of maybe 700 people. Every third head in this place wears a cowboy hat. And most are real cowboy hats. We are all watching a white-mustached guy called Dave Stamey who is obviously a huge star on the cowboy poetry circuit. And deservedly. He is like a singing Sam Elliott: a brilliant musician whom everybody loves. Just outside the seating area, I see two young women gazing at him adoringly and mouthing the words of his songs, including "I'm not old, I just been used rough..." Wow. Imagine having groupies when you're in your 50's and not even Mick Jagger!

I'm sitting next to a woman from New Mexico. She tells me her husband wanted to come but it was his busy season and he had to visit some ranches.

"What does he do?" I ask.

Above the sound of the music it sounds like she says: "He shoots horses."

"WHAT?"

"He's a farrier," she says. "He shoes horses."

"Ah," I say. But already I am thinking: There's got to be a cowboy poem in that.

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High Noon at the Cowboy Festival

2010-04-24T15:38:00.000+01:00

I've been looking forward to the Santa Clarita Cowboy festival for over a year. It's at the Melody Ranch where lots of famous Westerns were filmed, but it's only open one weekend a year.

We booked tickets online - our weekend pass was easy to get but the tours of the studio part of the ranch were sold out within the first hour. They only have places for 30 people. (Fix this, organizers!) We DID get tickets for the Movie Night. This is an outdoor showing of a classic Western at the end of main street, following dinner. Hmmm. What would that be like?

I booked us in to the La Quinta Inn, because they have a shuttle to and from the festival. Most people drive to a big car park behind the tracks on 13th Street in Newhall. It turns out that there is no shuttle from the hotel for the Friday Movie Night, but my iPhone tells me we can walk it in just under an hour. When I ask directions at the front desk the La Quinta Director of sales, Michelle Crawford, offers to drive us into Newhall. That's what I call service! It's just after 3.00pm and the weather is warm but not hot. California has been experiencing a cold snap. Michelle drives us to Newhall, which is a really boring name for this charming cowboy-flavored town. The William S. Hart ranch and park are here, plus a Cowboy Walk of Fame. The town should be called something more evocative like Coyote Flats or Buffalo Run. (There are some buffalo on the grounds of William S. Hart's estate).

Main Street is charming, with a very Mexican feel. Richard and I have a drink at the Trocadero, a new establishment among some older taquerias. Then we look for names we recognize on the Western Walk of Fame. Lots of names are unfamiliar but we know Powers Boothe from Deadwood, Bruce Boxleitner from Gods & Generals and Graham Greene from Dances with Wolves. While we are standing over this last plaque we get talking to a nice couple: he in cowboy hat, she in cowboy boots. We enthuse about Westerns for a while, then promise to look out for each other at the festival.

Richard and I wander down to peek into the William S. Hart park, just closing, then trek back to the shuttle pick-up spot for 6.30pm.

It is pretty easy to tell the other punters: most are wearing cowboy hats. I get chatting with Sampitch Kid, who has come all the way from Utah. Two Santa Clarita buses take about a hundred of us down some ranchy residential streets: Placerita Canyon, etc. Then through the gates of Melody Ranch, Spanish style of course, and here we are on the main street of a cowboy town. It looks great, with a bank, a jail, and plenty of saloons.

The sun is low in the sky. We line up to get our seat numbers, then bag a chair at our round, checkered tables and look around until movie time at 7.00. Merchants are already setting up. Pictures of horses, vintage wear, cowboy hats and a saddelry. Gary posed on one of his saddles. They are beautiful and they cost about $9000 a pop. Lots of work, leather and silver go into those.

Richard spots a buckskin dress and I can't resist trying it on. All right, I buyt it! I can do school events wearing it. They call us to dinner. This means getting in a long line but that is fine because you can get chatting to people. We met a fascinating journalist named Mark Bedor who was telling us all about his week learning to spend a week Custer's Cavalry. He also told us the best place to learn to ride a horse: White Stallion Dude Ranch, in Tucson, Arizona.

Food is a choice of chicken or beef, with nice yams, sauteed peppers and salad. Much nicer than any cowboy ever had on the range. The movie is High Noon, and it is introduced by Michael Blake, the son of Larry J Blake, in an uncredited role as the owner of the saloon where Gary Cooper punches a guy. He told us whenever he got bullied at school he would ride his bike home humming the theme to High Noon. It was one of the first films to use a theme throughout, and the famous ballad 'Do Not Forsake Me O My Darling' was in the charts even before the film came out.

(Here is a bit of trivia. Tex Ritter sang the song in the film but Frankie Lane had the hit.)

Everyone is quiet, almost reverent, as the film starts and although I saw about 30 frosted layer cakes for dessert, nobody makes a move to go and get a piece. We all want to watch the film. It is fun watching as people cheer and boo and everybody laughs at the end when a voice from one of the tables remarks 'You're supposed to clap and cheer at the end of a B Movie.'

We are all cold by now and hurry back down to the shuttle buses. Helpful volunteers wave the way with flashlights. Richard and I are the last ones to get on the first bus. 'Can anybody here give us a ride back to La Quinta Inn?' I say in a loud voice to the whole bus. I needn't have worried. Cowboys are all gentlemen.

Shooting Soap

2010-03-20T09:07:00.000Z

Every historical author needs at least one good expert source. One of mine is 'Hawkeye', a British gun-dealer and expert on Civil War period firearms.

I recently sent him a few pages of my first Western Mystery, to make sure I had details of the guns right.

In the first Western Mystery, The Case of the Counterfeit Injuns, my hero gets shot with a Smith & Wesson seven-shooter. It's only a .22 but my hero is only a kid. So how much damage would it do? Would a slug from a .22 knock down a 12 year old if fired at close range? Would it pierce buckskin? Or just bounce off? Can you even call a .22 a slug? Shouldn't you call it a 'pea'? It's tiny! (above)

I sent the relevant pages to Hawkeye and he sent back this fascinating reply:

I did a little test for you myself. Taking 10 rounds of modern .22 short, I pulled out the bullets, tipped out the modern nitro powder & replaced it with 4 grains of fine black powder, then put the bullets back on top. Fired from the old Eureka - barrel length 2 1/2 inches, it penetrated 1 1/4 inches of pine at 6 yards range. At the same distance it penetrated a soft leather belt pinned to a new bar of soap and exited the rear of the soap through a large hole. In my opinion the Smith & Wesson No. 1 with its 3 inch barrel would perform almost identically.

(above: Hawkeye's 2 1/2 inch barrel Eureka)

Ouch! So the answer to my question is yes, you can call a .22 ball a 'slug' because it can pierce buckskin and make a nasty hole at close range!

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Get the bang right

2010-03-07T17:39:00.000Z

I am having another fun session shooting cap & ball Colts today at a shooting club in South London. My mentor - let's call him Hawkeye - is sharing some secrets of how the movies get it all wrong.

1. There are five other shooters in our blind and I'm nearly deafened by the reports from their cap & ball revolvers (they are mostly .44s) even though I am wearing 'ear-defenders'. I remark on this to Hawkeye and mention The Proposition, a great Australian film which starts with a shootout where the gunshots sound like popguns. 'In films,' he says, 'they never get the bang right.' I jump as another deafening shot goes off behind me. 'And the more powder', says Hawkeye, 'the louder the bang. Also, more powder meant the ball would be more accurate. It's trajectory would be flatter.'

2. In the real wild West, they never held the gun sideways or with both hands. 'I think Hawaii Five-O is the first time you see cops holding a gun with two hands,' says Hawkeye. 'And the Pulp Fiction type holding it on its side is ridiculous. And what Jimmy Cagney does in the old films is criminal. He jerks the gun downwards as he fires.'

3. 'In my book,' I say, 'I have a ball from a .22 knock down my 12-year-old hero.' Hawkeye snorts. 'Even a shot from a .44 wouldn't throw you against the wall', he says. 'It would take a .50 calibre ball, from one of the big Sharpe's for example, to knock you down.'

4. Hawkeye says for a while there was a ridiculous fad for ricochets on American TV Westerns. (You know the kind of thing: B'dang! B'dang!) Hawkeye says lead balls go thunk. They don't bounce off things.

5. In For a Fistful of Dollars, a machine gun stands in for a gattling gun. Wrong! (I also noticed lots of ricochets in that film, too.)

6. In The Good, the Bad & the Ugly there is a delightful scene where Eli Wallach's Tuco (right) makes up a gun using the best parts from others. Wrong! (In his autobiography, The Good, The Bad, and Me, Wallach admits he was just riffing and having fun).

7. One bullet wouldn't necessarily have killed you.
Shooter: Bang!
Shootee: Argh! (slumps to ground, instantly dead.)
In actuality, one of the Younger Gang was shot 28 times... and lived long enough to witness the age of aviation. According to Hawkeye.

8. Cool leather holsters with matching cartridge belts? Not so common. Men often carried guns in their pockets or on a piece of string or in a sack. Many so called gunmen didn't even know how to fire a gun properly. Says Hawkeye.

9. In the film Winchester 73, Jimmy Stewart's character shoots a bullet through a washer tossed high in the air. Hawkeye scoffs at this, too. He says that might happen if the washer was stationary, but never while flying through the air.

10. Did they ever get it right? 'Yes,' says Hawkeye. 'In John Wayne's last film, The Shootist, he tells the boy that although the grouping of the bullets is important, a target never shoots back. The important thing is not to flinch.'

Note to self: In the Western Mysteries I should avoid ricochets, people slammed against walls or knocked over by slugs, single shot instant death, amazing accuracy, and most important of all, I must get the bang right!

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Great Westerns #1

2010-02-26T19:34:00.000Z

For the past three years I've secretly been working on a new series: The Western Mysteries.

One of the best things about it has been re-watching some of my old fave Western films and TV shows. In the next day or two I'll post my top ten westerns of the many I've watched over the past couple of year. In the meantime, here are a dozen of my older favorites:

1. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 1966
When I revisited this classic spaghetti western three years ago, I couldn't believe how good and funny it was. There are at least three classic scenes, some wonderful lines and an iconic soundtrack by Ennio Morricone. My favourite character is Tuco - 'the Ugly' - magnifiently played by Eli Wallach, who will be 94 later this year.
quote: 'Don't die, I'll get you water. Stay there. Don't move, I'll get you water. Don't die until later.' (Tuco)

2. "Deadwood" 2004
This amazing HBO TV series rekindled my passion for The Western. Like all good historical fiction, it made me think: 'That's exactly how it would have been.' Kids DO NOT watch this at home.
quote: 'Avoid looking left as you exit, if idolatry offends you.' (E.B.Farnum)

3. Little Big Man 1970
Dustin Hoffman plays a 111-year-old man in this moving western which always makes me laugh and also cry. Chief Dan George is in it.
quote: 'Every time I believe you are dead and the buzzards have eaten your body, you come back!' (Younger Bear)

4. The Outlaw Josie Wales 1976
Clint chews tobacco and spits! Chief Dan George is in this one, too!
quote: 'I didn't surrender, but they took my horse and made him surrender. They have him pulling a wagon up in Kansas I bet.' (Chief Dan George)

5. The Searchers 1956
The classic John Ford/John Wayne film which influenced many, many directors and films. Filmed in Monument Valley, Utah.
quote: 'That'll be the day!' (Ethan)

6. Once Upon a Time in the West 1968
The western to end all westerns. Sergio Leone's masterpiece. Another brilliant soundtrack by Ennio Morricone and the longest buggy ride in film history. Claudia Cardinale starts out in Spain and ends up in Monument Valley, Utah. Henry Fonda is brilliantly cast against type as a cold-blooded, child-killing baddie, Charles Bronson is Harmonica and Jason Robards is everyone's favourite: Cheyenne. Get the new DVD; it has one of the best commentaries I have come across so far.
quote: 'Looks like we're shy one horse.' (Snaky) 'No, you brought two too many.' (Harmonica)

7. Two Mules for Sister Sarah 1970
Another great Eastwood role. Shirley Maclaine as the 'nun' is brilliant. The animal that inspired part of the Morricone soundtrack is her mule.
quote: 'All the women I've ever known were natural-born liars but I never knew about nuns until now.' (Hogan)

8. The Magnificent Seven 1960
Based on Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, this film is a classic. Many filmmakers have stolen from it. I will, too.
quote: 'Yes. The final supreme idiocy. Coming here to hide. The deserter hiding out in the middle of a battlefield.' (Lee)

9. Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid 1969
Another anti-western. 'Who ARE those guys?' They are Robert Redford and Paul Newman.
quote: 'Think ya used enough dynamite there, Butch?' (Sundance)

10. Dances With Wolves 1990
Kevin Costner has starred in two great films in his career. This is one of them. The buffalo hunt was done before the days of CGI and Kevin really rode in it. The new DVD has some great supplementary material.
quote: 'My name is Dunbar, not Dumb Bear.' (John Dunbar)

11. Cat Ballou 1965
A musical comedy version of the Western, with Lee Marvin and Jane Fonda.
quote: 'You won't make me cry. You'll never make me cry! .' (Cat Balloo)

12. Eagle's Wing 1979
Last but not least. This underrated western with a young Martin Sheen as a runaway bluecoat and Sam Waterstone as a boozy Comanche has almost no dialogue. A brilliant example of 'show don't tell'. Filmed entirely on location in Mexico, the scenery is stupendous. Some very clever scenes, too.
quote: 'Any man alive would give his vitals for that horse.' (Pike)

Going to post my more recent discoveries soon!
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Recipe for a Revolver

2010-02-08T19:25:00.000Z

Any writer knows that you can read about something as much as you like, but it's not until you've actually tried it out that you really understand it.

In Virginia city last year I went on a stagecoach ride. Ten minutes was enough to show me how claustrophobic and uncomfortable and even scary it would have been.

I also visited the jail and a mine. Both of them made me feel clammy and prickly and trapped.

In Death Valley I went horse riding for an afternoon. OK, an afternoon on a plodding horse is not a cattle drive like in the old Westerns, but you get the feel (and smell) of being on horseback in the west.

Some things I don't want to experience: getting shot, going down a deep mine, drinking alkali water or 'tarantula juice' (homemade mezcal), being in a real shoot out, getting scalped.

One thing about the 1860's I must know first-hand is how to load and fire a cap and ball revolver.

Until the 1870's, the majority of handguns were cap and ball. This meant you had to put all the components of a bullet in the chambers of your cylinder. Like putting the ingredients of a little meal in a pan to cook them. (All except for the cap, which is the frosting on the cake)

Luckily the main character in my new series owns a Smith & Wesson Seven-shooter model 1. This was one of the earliest guns to have a metal cartridge with the cap and ball and powder all inside.

But in Virginia City in 1862, the time my book is set, very few people were lucky enough to own a gun which took cartridges. According to Mark Twain, who was there at the time, almost everybody in wore the 'universal Navy revolver'. This popular gun was 'cap and ball'. So were the many models of Colt's Pocket Pistol. So was the bigger Colt's Army Revolver. The only difference was the size of the bullet or 'ball'.

At the Ham & Petersham Rifle & Pistol Club one Sunday, I saw why they call it a 'ball'. It really is a big metal ball.

A .22 caliber ball is tiny, about the size of a dried pea.
A .36 caliber ball is the size of a normal pea.
A .44 caliber ball is about the size of a chickpea. And it's heavy. You wouldn't want one of those to hit you.

I went with my 'research assistants' - my husband Richard and his friend Charles - on a cold February morning. The Gun Club is down a one lane dirt track by the River Thames. The parking lot is muddy. The architecture is shed-like. The interior decoration non-existent. My mother used to go to gun clubs with my grandfather in the 1930's and she says things were just the same then in California.

It is a guest day, so we pay our £10 entry and £5 for a few rounds of ammo.
They have to make us up some packs, so we sit watching Derek (top) as he assembles the components.
Big metal .44 balls. Check.
Little circular wads. Check.
Tiny round boxes of caps. Check
Where's the black powder?
'Out in the shooting range,' says Derek. 'We don't use black powder. We use something called Pyrodex. It's safer and more predictable.'
'Oh,' I say, crestfallen. 'I want the full black powder experience. The bang and the smoke.'
'You'll get the black powder experience,' says Derek. 'Don't worry.'

We collect our 'ear defenders' (no charge to borrow them) and follow Tony across the muddy parking lot to the 25 yard range where they fire cap & ball firearms. Derek and Tony and all the other helpers are members who cheerfully donate their time to help guests one Sunday a month. The gun club is a non-profit organization.

A long wooden shed - a bit like a horse's stable - has places for six shooters.
25 yards away are six targets. Behind the targets an earthen bank and a tall brick wall.
'If you aim too high', says Tony, 'You might hit a tourist in the grounds of Ham House.'
He is joking.
I think.

Richard and Charles and I are going to be using the club's guns, some replica Rogers&Spencer .44 revolvers, made in Italy.
Apparently, if you want a good working replica of a Wild West gun, that is where they make them. You can also get working replicas from places like the Dixie Gun Works.The original Rogers&Spencer revolver was manufactured in bulk for use in the Civil War, but by the time it came out the war was over. It's a few years after the date of my first book, but it will give me a good idea of how to load and fire a period firearm.

First Tony shows me how to load the Rogers&Spencer revolver.
You take a brass powder flask filled with black powder. There is a special way of filling the nozzle with exactly the right amount for a charge. You hold the flask in your right hand, with your forefinger over the open end of the nozzle and your thumb on a little lever. You push a little lever, hold the flask upside down, tap powder into the nozzle, let the lever go, turn the flask upright, remove your finger from the top of the nozzle and tip the measure of powder carefully into an empty chamber of your cylinder. Then you put down the flask. Take a disc of felt - the wad - and push it in on top of the powder. Then comes the lead ball. It is slightly too big for the chamber so you have to use the ramming rod to push it right in.

The ball needs to be big to grip the rifling in the barrels. Rifling is the term for the curved grooves that make the ball spin, for greater accuracy. So there's your lead ball, sticking out of the business-end of the chamber. Now you have to turn the cylinder and center the ball under the ramming rod (a metal rod attached to the underside of the barrel) and ram it in. This can be quite difficult to do. The ramming rod is stiff for a gal's fingers, and if you don't center it just right it doesn't work. But once you've rammed it right down, you are ready to repeat the process in the next chamber.

Once you have put a measure of powder a wad and a ball into each of the six chambers, you put the flask well out of the way.
'That powder flask is essentially a hand grenade,' says Tony cheerfully. 'One spark and it will blow up.'
I put it in a large tupperware box and press the lid down firmly.

Now for the caps. These are little copper cylinders smaller than a tic-tac. Your fingers feel big and clumsy as you try to fit six of them on the six nipples at the back of the cylinder. When the hammer of the gun strikes these copper caps, a spark ignites the power and the explosion pushes the lead ball out of the barrel at several hundred miles per hour. The wad is to stop the powder sparking and causing what is called a flashover.

A 'flashover' is where a spark from one chamber ignites the powder in all the other chambers and all six bullets go off at once. Either that, or the gun explodes.
Neither scenario is desirable.

When I had finally filled all the chambers with the required ingredients and fit the fiddly cap on the backs of each one I was FINALLY ready to try it out.
Get your stance right.
Breathe in.
Take aim.
Squeeze the trigger.
BAM!
A satisfyingly loud report and a slight kick upwards and sparks fly out and there is a gratifying cloud of grey fog: gunsmoke!

You have five more bullets to fire.

It is over too quickly.

Now you have to load it all over again.

Imagine doing this under enemy fire. Or with a pack of redskins whooping down on you. That would take a cool head.

No wonder there was a waiting list for Smith & Wesson's model 2 .32 revolver, with its all-in-one metal cartridge.

Here are ten fascinating things I learned at the shooting range as I tried out cap and ball and powder:

1. The bang would have been even louder in the Old West when they used at least twice the amount of powder we were using.
2. If you accidentally load an extra ball you can't turn the chamber on.
3. If you don't put in the powder the cap will push the ball into the barrel but not out of it...
4. So when you fire your next shot the barrel can explode!
5. You get powder smears on the base knuckle of your index finger.
6. You can get speckly powder burns that are like a tatoo, an expert called Dave showed me his.
7. Sometimes a little spark follows the bullet out, that is the remains of the wad.
8. You can use axle grease or bear fat instead of the wad, anything that will form a seal against sparks.
9. In the heat of battle you can dispense with the wad, but then you risk flashover.
10. In a battle, the cloud of gunsmoke would soon obscure your vision.

The best part about our morning at the Ham & Petersham Rifle & Pistol Club was when I met an expert on firearms of the 1800s. Dave let me try out his replica Winchester 66 and he also had a sweet little .22 revolver. He promised to bring his own Smith & Wesson seven-shooters the next time we meet!

Watch this space...
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More about the Western Mysteries

2010-02-04T08:51:00.000Z

Over the past few years I've been working on a exciting new series very close to my Californian heart.

The Western Mysteries will be set in wild and wooly Virginia City in the fall of 1862.

Why 1862?

Back east the American Civil War is in its second year.

Out West the Silver Boom is taking over from the Gold Rush.

And in the final days of September, a dusty prospector walks into the offices of the Territorial Enterprise Newspaper to take up a postition as a 'local' reporter. His name is Sam Clemens but within half a year he will begin writing under the name 'Mark Twain'. But Mark Twain isn't the only exciting thing about Virginia City in 1862. There are also gamblers, miners, con-artists, hurdy girls, prospectors & gunmen galore.

Here are some of the original ideas I had for The Western Mysteries.

1. The series will be for children aged 8 - 14+
2. The detective will be a loner: the western hero is always a loner.
3. The detective will be a kid.
4. The detective will own a Smith & Wesson seven-shooter.
5. Real historical figures will appear in the books.
6. The bad-guys will be gunfighters, tricksters & newspapermen.
7. The mysteries will be based around real historical events.
8. The books will be told in the first person.
9. My detective will love black coffee and layer cake.
10. I am going to have a lot of fun writing these books.

Here are some of the things which have made it into the first book:

1. A hero like nobody you've ever met before.
2. A terrifying, sadistic bad guy...
3. ...and his two side-kicks.
4. A terrible massacre, apparently by Indians.
5. An exciting stagecoach chase.
6. A beautiful hurdy girl, a Chinese boy & a handsome gambler.
7. Shootouts galore and some Bowie knife action, too.
8. A Pinkerton detective. Kind of.
9. A heart-stopping showdown in a deep mine shaft.
10. An ending that promises more.

Even if you don't like Westerns, I think you'll like these books. For more news, watch this space!

:)

A Western Tragedy

2010-01-17T21:12:00.000Z

In 1961, Ox-Bow Incident author Walter Van Tilburg Clark left a teaching position in San Francisco and returned to his boyhood home Nevada to take on the job of editing The Journals of Alfred Doten.

These 79 leather-bound notebooks were written by one of the original 49ers, Alfred Doten. Spanning half a century, they are one of the best primary sources of the American West.

On Sunday March 18, 1849, the 19-year-old Alf starts his first diary on board the ship to California, where gold has just been discovered at Sutter's Mill. After a six-month voyage 'round the horn' he steps off the ship in San Francisco as an innocent, observant young man who disapproves of heavy drinking, violence, womanizing and greed. Over the next dozen years he roves across much of Northern California, trying his luck in mining camps and 'diggins' with names like places like Hangtown, Fort Grizzly and Spanish Gulch, and then moving on as he fails to strike it rich. He begins writing letters about the Wild West to his home-town newspaper in Plymouth, Mass.

In 1855 Alf suffers a mining accident when he is caught in a cave-in. For a while he is paralyzed from the waist down but gradually recovers. This incident knocks the stuffing out of him. He limps back to San Francisco, where his sister lives, and he tries to settle down at farming and ranching.

With his physical recovery comes copper fever, and then silver fever. In 1863, he crosses the Sierra Nevadas into the Washoe Valley for the great Comstock Silver Boom. He settles in Como, a new mining camp south of Mount Davidson, makes a final stab at prospecting, and fails again. Alf tries to set up a newspaper in Como, which also fails, but as a result of this journalistic foray, he is asked to join the Daily Union newspaper in Virginia City. Here he overlaps with another prospector-turned-Virginia-City-reporter, Mark Twain, by a few months.

In May of 1864, 29-year-old Mark Twain leaves for San Francisco. 43-year-old Alf settles down in Virginia City and is soon drawn into the amoral lifestyle of a rough mining town which inspired TV's Deadwood. By his mid 40's Alf has become a debauched, adulterous, greedy alcoholic who relishes lynchings, bear-baiting and cock-fights. He marries and has four children, puts on weight through heavy drinking, makes some bad business decisions and finally ends his life in Carson City as a 'bitter and lonely old bar-fly, the town drunk and figure of fun.'

As he copied out the Alf Doten journals by hand - and collated the numerous articles, certificates and photographs in the Records of Alfred Doten - Clark became caught up in the life of the aging 49er. He writes that the diaries presented in graphic and often moving detail the tragic course of single representative life through the violent transformations enforced by the... amoral life of the California Gold Rush and the Nevada Silver Rush. know of no other account of the kind, or fiction either, for that matter, which even begins to to this as fully and memorably as Alf's Journals.

For a time, Clark entertained the idea of writing a novel based on the life of Alf Doten, but he suffered terribly from writer's block in his later years. This was partly caused by his perfectionist streak, but may also have been partly due to the depressing nature of the Doten Diaries, in which he was immersed. In the forward to the massive three volume diaries, Clark's son writes that after a long day transcribing the diaries his father often wondered whose life he was living, and whether he would outlast Doten.

It must have been hard for Clark not to be affected by the decline and fall of Alf Doten. Clark himself said: '... I am so much the walking dust of Alf Doten now that I fear even high breezes will dispel me.'

On the few occasions when Walter Van Tilburg Clark surfaced from the diaries to give public lectures, he held audiences enthralled for hours. One contemporary wrote: 'He lectured for three hours. Nobody left. Nobody left and it is a crime that we did not tape that...'

Clark died of cancer in 1971, just as he finished editing Doten's journals.

It had taken him ten years.

It is a tragedy that Clark never wrote his novel about Alf Doten. But at least he has left three fat volumes of one of the most fascinating accounts of what life in the wild West was really like.

The Ox-Bow Man - a biography of Walter Clark by Jackson J. Benson
The Journals of Alfred Doten edited by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
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Ox-bow Incident

2010-01-17T19:36:00.000Z

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In 1940, a young high school English teacher named Walter Van Tilburg Clark published his first novel, one of the first anti-Westerns. The Ox-Bow Incident is the story of two Nevada cowboys - Gil Carter and Art Croft (the first person narrator) - who get caught up in a lynch mob and its tragic results. The book became an immediate classic and film rights were bought within a year of its publication, then re-sold. In 1942 20th Century Fox produced a film also called The Ox-Bow Incident, starring Henry Fonda, Harry Morgan, Dana Andrews and a delightfully young Anthony Quinn.

When I was at high school in California, The Ox-Bow Incident was required reading. I remember I found it hard-going. I recently picked it up again, and still found it hard-going. Although I love Clark's vivid descriptions of the Nevada desert, by today's standards the plot is very slow-moving. For me the biggest flaw is the great number of characters, each described vividly the first time but never again. I had trouble keeping them all straight and found myself flipping back to see who was who.

For me, the film overcomes many of the book's drawbacks. The twenty-plus characters are easily identified when you see and hear them. The interiors and exteriors are dramatic. (Although some of the outdoor scenes were glaringly filmed on a set and not on location.)

In the book, the contents of a letter written by one of the hanged men is never revealed. In the film, Gil Carter (Henry Fonda) reads the letter aloud to all the men in the lynch mob in the penultimate scene in the saloon. (below) In this moving scene, Carter's eyes are obscured by the hat brim of Art Croft (Harry Morgan). This is obviously a carefully framed composition. What does it signify? That justice is blind? That the characters were blind? That we can't always see the whole picture?

The final scene of the film is a perfect bookmark to the opening scene of the film.

Though dated, I found The Ox-Bow Incident deeply moving. It was a nominee for the Academy Award in 1943, but lost out to Casablanca.

Clark taught creative writing at the University of Missoula in Montana and San Francisco State before moving to Reno to become the writer-in-residence at the University of Nevada. A strikingly handsome man, even into his 60's, Clark often wore the same clothes: blue socks, grey slacks, a blue turtleneck and a maroon jacket. He died in Virginia City in 1971, aged 62.

Clark wrote several other novels, as well as some poetry - and he edited the extensive diaries of Alf Doten - but he never wrote anything as acclaimed as that first novel. I suggest you see the film The Ox-Bow Incident first, and then read the book.
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Mystery of Topless Twain

2010-01-09T23:30:00.000Z

I was reading Paul Fatout's Mark Twain in Virginia City the other day and came across this interesting observation: 'Among the many pictures of Mark Twain, not one is smiling...'

I looked through my own archives and found that indeed, there seem to be no pictures of Mark Twain smiling. How surprising for America's foremost humorist, dry humorist notwithstanding...

One explanation might be that Twain's bushy mustache - adopted in around 1864 - hid any upturning of the corners of the mouth.

Another explanation might be that like certain actors of the 60's - the 1960's, that is: not the 1860's - he had bad teeth and was loath to expose them. That is why French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant rarely smiled.

Another explanation might be that Victorian subjects did not often smile for photos.

However, neither did they take off their shirts to reveal manly, hairy chests.

When I Tweeted for help, asking if there really were no pictures of him smiling, @TwainHouse came up with the startling image at the top of this post. (I have used my usual photoshop filter to make it look more striking. You can see the original, undoctored image HERE.)

Now I know that American photographers of the 1860's - 1890's often photographed corpses and bawdy girls, but never have I seen a topless literary lion like Mark Twain.

Why, oh why?

Had he just emerged from a hot mine? Or a hot bath?

Was this a medical picture for the benefit of his doctor?

Was it a romantic Valentine's Day photo for his wife, Olivia?

Was it because he lost a bet? Or won a bet?

Maybe he was just proud to be in such good shape at the age of 48 or 49.

One clue might be the date of the photo.

@mtpo, the Mark Twain Project at the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, say the photo was taken in 1884 by Towlueson in Hartford,Connecticut. What was Mark Twain doing in 1884? According to the excellent TIMELINE at Mark Twain House, he was on a lecture tour. Huckleberry Finn was to be published in the last month of that year. Could it be that Mark Twain decided to take his own raft trip down the Mississippi?

Perhaps someone from The Mark Twain Project or the Twain House will enlighten me.

In the meantime, I can't help recalling one of Mark Twain's funniest quips: 'Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.'

All I can say is: Thank goodness this seems to be the only picture of a bare-chested Clemens!
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Bedbugs Cause Fire!

2010-01-02T08:04:00.000Z

Virginia City in the 1860's was a tinderbox. Frame houses, tents, open flames and the "Washoe Zephyr" (the strong breeze that often blows for a few days) meant that fire was a constant threat. Reporter Alf Doten was living in Virginia City in 1865. One Sunday evening in August he was attending a show at Maguire's Opera House (below: the big building between the flag and the church) when everyone heard fire alarm bells and rushed outside to see what was burning. Here's the story in his own words, from his Journal:

Sunday, Aug 6 [1865] Clear & pleasant - a little breezy... Evening went to Maguire's - performance commenced & got nearly through to the Walk around when about 9 o'clock the fire bells rang, & all hands rushed - I with the rest - Clark was with me - fire was on east of C st just south of Taylor among a lot of wooden buildings - commenced in an upper story of a paint shop - lodging room, occupied by Sam Brose (formerly of Como) and others - Sam says he was hunting bedbugs with a candle on the wall - wall of cloth and paper caught fire, and he couldnt put it out, it burnt with such rapidity - He caught up what he could and skedadled - Engines were on the ground very promptly, as usual - fire spread to buildings on each side, but it was soon subdued and extinguished - paint shop pretty well destroyed - other buildings but little damaged - loss two or three thousand dollars - Winnie Wright and Pat Barry of the H-L got hurt by some of the falling of an awning upon them - Clark & I went to Music Hall & saw the performance out...

A Western Xmas - 1864

2009-12-25T13:39:00.000Z

Alf Doten was 19 when gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in California. He sailed from Plymoth to California to seek his fortune. He spent the next two decades trying to strike gold (or silver) in California and Nevada. Finally in 1864 he went to join the staff of a newspaper in Virginia City Nevada. He overlapped another prospector-turned-Virginia-City-newspaperman by only a few months. That man was Sam Clemens, who had just started to write under the pen name, Mark Twain.

Alf Doten was not as witty or successful as Mark Twain, but he kept detailed journals of his experiences from the day he stepped onto the ship bound for San Francisco until the day he died, in 1909. He left 79 leather-bound journals, with entries in pencil. In 1973, the respected scholar and author of The Ox-Bow Incident, Walter van Tilburg Clark, published The Journals of Alfred Doten in three huge volumes. They offer fascinating glimpses in to the daily life in the American West in the second half of the 19th century.

Here for example, are some of his entries from December 1864, his first Christmas in Virginia City.

above: Alf Doten in 1866, two years after he wrote the entry below

Dec 22 - Clear and pleasant - Went up to Morton's to Forefather's dinner - some 10 or 12 sat at table - chicken roasted, succotash, pies, cakes etc, cider, wine &c - I took a bottle of that champagne along that I stole from the office - jolly time... at 6 1/2 ocl'k went to Consolidation meeting & reported it... in the evening I attended the Ladies Fair for the benefit of the Sisters of Charity...

Dec 24 - Stormy - blustery with light sprinkles of rain occasionally - Christmas eve - after got through work about 11 oclock our boys all pitched into the egg-nog, two pitchers full of which were sent into us by the saloons - sang songs & had a jolly time - drank it all up & then started out - got all the Enterprise boys out - some 15 or 20 of us in all - Dan De Quille also along - visited all the saloons - free drink with all of them - printers on the rampage - went down to Chinatown and kicked up thunder - came back - at 4 oclock Dan & I made out to get clear from the crowd & home to our beds. -

Sunday, Dec 25 - The same - blew like the devil all day - stripped several roofs of tin - blew down buildings and did much damage - Light rain most of the day - rose at 11 - turkey, pudding etc at Mrs Dill's - went up to Morton's dined there also - chicken, pudding, succotash, etc - Evening we attended Sabbath school Festival at St Pauls Church - went from there to Music Hall - then to Great Republic - I slept with Sutterly [sic] at his room -

Clem Sutterley (pictured) was a photographer and friend of Alf Doten

Dec 27 ... Was down with Higbee to visit Jessie Lester who was shot last Sunday night - had to have her right arm amputated at the shoulder joint this afternoon - poor creature, she was just recovering from the taking of chloroform during the operation, and was shrieking with pain - and in her delirium, calling on her mother...

Dec 31 ... I got through about 1 o'clock - run about town couple of hours longer, with Higbee & other policemen - lots of pistols, guns, &c being fired off to welcome in the new year. All over the City - bed at 3 or 4 - So ends 1864

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR 145 years on!