Encyclopedia of Frontier Literature by Mary Ellen Snodgrass

 

Well, that title says it all.

This is a compendium guide to literature written at the time of Frontier Expansion and a good smattering of titles written well after, with the caveat being any later titles must be reflective of historical verisimilitude.

I repeat, this is less a guide to gerne fiction than it is a deep look at what was written then about the American West as it was being settled than what was written after with hindsight and Hollywood coloring.

For the historian and/or armchair scholar who finds more gold in actuality than formulaic depictions, well, this one mighty fine sourcebook.

Easy A+

Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee by David Crockett

 

This 1834 volume is a fine glimpse into the mindset of a legend.

 

What particularly strikes, this reader at least, is the well he goes to again and again—How to Be Your Own Man.

 

A man who follows the Star of Principles over the cult of personality, the tug of party, or the absurd strictures of dogma.

A man who looks to himself even if it “ruins.”

 

Rare and admirable.

 

“He said, 'I would as lieve be an old coondog as obliged to do what any man or set of men would tell me to do. I will support the present Administration as far as I would any other; that is, as far as I believe its views to be right. I will pledge myself to support no Administration. I had rather be politically damned than hypocritically immortalized.'"-David Crockett on withdrawing his support for Andrew Jackson

 

“Ere long he found it necessary to oppose some of Jackson's measures. We will let him tell the story in his own truthful words: "Soon after the commencement of this second term, I saw, or thought I did, that it was expected of me that I would bow to the name of Andrew Jackson, and follow him in all his motions, and windings, and

turnings, even at the expense of my conscience and judgment. Such a thing was new to me, and a total stranger to my principles. I know'd well enough, though, that if I didn't 'hurrah' for his name, the hue and cry was to be raised against me, and I was to be sacrificed, if possible. His famous, or rather I should say his infamous Indian bill was brought forward, and I opposed it from the purest motives in the world. Several of my colleagues got around me, and told me how well they loved me, and that I was ruining myself. They said this was a favorite measure of the President, and I ought to go for it. I told them I believed it was a wicked, unjust measure, and that I should go against it, let the cost to myself be what it might; that I was willing to go with General Jackson in everything that I believed was honest and right; but, further than this, I wouldn't go for him or any other man in

the whole creation.”-David Crockett

 

Crockett was then called up, as the "undeviating supporter of the Constitution and the laws." In response to this toast, he says, "I made a short speech, and concluded with the story of the red cow, which was, that as long as General Jackson went straight, I followed him; but when he began to go this way, and that way, and every way, I wouldn't go after him; like the boy whose master ordered him to plough across the field to the red cow. Well, he began to plough, and she began to walk; and he ploughed all forenoon after her. So when the master came, he swore at him for going so crooked. 'Why, sir,' said the boy, 'you told me to plough to the red cow, and I kept after her, but she always kept moving.'"-David Crockett

 

“I voted for Andrew Jackson because I believed he possessed certain principles, and not because his name was Andrew Jackson, or the Hero, or Old Hickory. And when he left those principles which induced me to support him, I considered myself justified in opposing him. This thing of man-worship I am a stranger to; I don't like it; it taints every action of life; it is like a skunk getting into a house—long after he has cleared out, you smell him in every room and closet, from the cellar to the garret.”—David Crockett

 

“The time will and must come, when honesty will receive its reward, and when the people of this nation will be brought to a sense of their duty, and will pause and reflect how much it cost us to redeem ourselves from the government of one man.”—David Crockett’

 

“I will be no man's man, and no party's man.”—David Crockett

 

His celebrated motto, "Be sure that you are right, and then go ahead,"-David Crockett

 

 “March 5^th. Pop, pop, pop! Bom, bom, bom! Throughout the day. No time for memorandums now. Liberty and Independence forever.”-The final entry in David Crockett’s Journal, found at the Alamo.

An Apache Campaign in the Sierra Madre by John G. Bourke

 

The two great points of superiority of the native or savage soldier over the representative of civilized discipline are his absolute knowledge of the country and his perfect ability to take care of himself at all times and under all circumstances. Though the rays of the sun poured down from the zenith, or the scorching sirocco blow from the south, the Apache scout trudges along as unconcerned as he was when the cold rain or snow winter chilled his white comrade to the marrow. He finds food and pretty good food too, where the Caucasian would starve.

This non-fiction account by Captain Bourke of the Third Cavalry, U.S. Army is superlative, simply superlative.

For me to add more words to his succinct and dynamic account would take time away from your reading it.

I heartily endorse this excellent volume.

Pannin’ for Pulp: “Thirst” by John Prescott

 

Anyone who reads the old pulps can tell you there is a heap of dross there, but occasionally one comes across a bit of shine that is well worth holding aloft to catch a glimpse of sun.

Well, here we have one such nugget.

He had been in Darwin, Inyo County, indifferently considering some offers of day labor, when Lawson and Cooke had ridden in; and after the manner of a man who all his life had amounted to very little, and had prospects for nothing better, he was greatly flattered when the outlaw spoke to him.

Prescott’s lean and mean tale from the pages of Gunsmoke magazine [1953] is grim, gritty, informed and gets a lot done with a slim page count.

Well, worth a look-see.

Front Sight by Stephen Hunter

 

Stephen Hunter, a poet of accurate gunplay among thriller writers. A man who often gets the violence right and extracts as much of the romanticism as he can to lean into realism offers us three novellas in this volume.

The first, “City of Meat” puts it in western territory by my reckoning as it takes place in the Depression Era Gangster days and is built on the premise of a Pretty Boy Floyd sighting in Chicago.

The writing quality is high, as the following extract shows regarding a visit to the massive stockyards and slaughter pens.

In a few minutes, he was sitting next to an elderly black man who owed him nothing and hardly noticed them. A slatternly old pony pulled a little cart along, driven by the casual slash of a whip Cracker snapped into its flanks. The pony, which could only be called You Poor Thing, pulled his wagon to the right under Cracker’s ungentle mandate, and they left the administrative city behind, entering the pens, unprotected by the bubble of his car, Charles experienced the smell full on. It seemed to double or triple, like a palpable cloud, a tear-bringer, like a phenomenon of the weather. It was everywhere and could not be avoided. Worse still, its fetid promise of nourishment brought flies in the billions, even some carrying birds silhouetted on bare branches, ready to pounce on the gobbet of beef, a foot, an eye, whatever spillage there was.

The other two novellas advance in time, one a 1940s noir piece and the final, a 1970s tribute to Italian giallo cinema.

The quality is high in all, if there is a quibble, it is that of all series characters—the end is a foregone conclusion—the author cannot risk killing the cash-cow, so there is seldom much surprise in these endeavors.

Still, the writing across all three is high.

I would love to see Mr. Hunter dip full-bore into the Western with no onus of preserving a character. Simply allow his muse to craft and beguile.

Three novellas, not a bad deal for the buck.

The Invader by Richard Wormser

 

Ken felt he'd have gone crazy sitting in an office staring at papers and talking to people who wanted to buy or sell houses or the like. And the time was long past when a married man could support himself decently by riding fence or punching cows. If the pay was good--being foreman one of the big spreads paid more than the county gave him--the owner was a movie star or a Texas oilman, and the ramrod had to go through three bookkeepers, a secretary, and an accountant, and a business manager before he could buy a sack of fence staples.

So Sheriff Ken Craigie would stick to driving the roads. He and his four deputies put in a thousand miles a day in the three cruisers and a Jeep that were the county fleet; Not that they expected to run into enough crime to pay for all that gas and oil and wear and tear, but because it was good crime prevention.

Not to mention that it was good public relations. Law abiding people like to know that the law was keeping an eye on them, and lawbreakers disliked the same thing and even proportion.

This Fawcett Gold Medal paperback from 1972 features the tag “From the Publishers of The Godfather” on the cover. The sales of that novel were so high you could feel the idea of, “Hey, all you Gold Medal authors out there, ya mind shoe-horning the mob into your tales?”

Mr. Wormser, a fine writer of Westerns, gives us a neo-Western that feels like something Brian Garfield may have offered us. Lots of desert country, lots of informed ranch lore [Mr. Wormer himself owned a ranch and writes of this authentically.] The mob element is introduced with subtlety and does not feel intrusive.

Until it is…

The first 2/3rds of this book are mighty enjoyable fare, then the author seems to realize he has to leave all this wonderful groundwork behind to get all La Cosa Nostra.

Here, the novel becomes rushed and reliant on Agatha Christie level plot machinations to make it work in the end.

Too bad, I was enjoying the ride and kinda sorta would like to see what Sherriff Craigie got up to if Mr. Wormser were left to his own devices.

The Journal of Francois Antoine Larocque

 

The Journal was composed in French concerning events occurring in 1805 along the Assiniboine River to the Yellowstone. A translation was offered in 1911. A few other examinations of scraps of Larocque’s journal survive but his own words capture the rawness of the early fur-trading expeditions.

The tribes referred to within are variously called “Rocky Mountain Indians,” “Assiniboine,” and the offered incident below takes place near the Little Big Horn, 71 years before the notorious battle.

The tribal combatants in the well-known battle were Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho. It is only a surmise that any of these tribes could be a portion of what is referred to in the described incident.

[See here for a further Arapaho offering.]

All escaped with the exception of two of the most advanced, who sent as spies, had drawn nearer to us than the others without perceiving us. After a long pursuit they were surrounded then killed and scalped in the twinkling of an eye. When I arrived near to the body I ascertained that the scalp and the fingers on the right hand had been taken off and that those who had done the trick had left. They borrowed my hunting knife to cut off the left hand and returned it to me all covered with blood as witness of esteem and expressed to me the desire “to […?] at him.”  Men, women, and children crowded to see the cadavers and tasted the blood. Each desired to poignard the corpse to show us what he would have done if he had met them living and to pour out then on these remains insult and outrage in a horrible language.  In a little while it became difficult to recognize in this debris that form of a human body. All the young men had attached a piece of flesh to their gun or on their spears, then they retook, while singing, the rush to the camp and showed their trophies with pride to all the young persons they met. A few women had an entire limb suspended from their saddle. The spectacle of such inhumanity made me shiver with horror and the sentiments that I had felt in setting out had made place for its state of mind very different.

The journals are rife with raw incident and ingenious scoutcraft. A treasure trove for historians, and Western genre readers who like to understand the reality behind the legend.

Resources for the Lived Side of Things.