The Dakotas: The Episode That Led to Immediate Cancellation

 

Disclosure: I was not aware of this single-season 1963 series until I read about the controversy over this single episode.

This ABC adult Western dealt with Marshall Frank Ragan [Larry Ward] an actor unfamiliar to me till this show—he’s quite good, a laid-back Bogart vibe.

Ragan is accompanied by his deputies, Vance Porter [played by an amiable Michael Green], Del Stark [a young energetic Chad Everett], and J.D. Smith—played by Jack Elam. Elam is a revelation; I had only known him for his semi-comic sidekick work. Here he is damned effective as a laconic lawman who can stare a man down without giggle or smile proffered. He’s very very good here.

On to the episode and the controversy.

The episode in question is titled, “Sanctuary at Crystal Springs.” It was written by Cy Chermak and directed by Richard Sarafian.

The script and the staging are the stars here. We open directly into a siege followed by unexpected outcomes with hostages—I won’t spoil it, I will just say that I was surprised at how far the margins were pushed for a 1963 series airing at 7:30 PM.

We wind up inside a church for further incident.

The story is one of violence, faith [the word “atheist” is bandied about a good bit], and the necessity of “what must be done.”

Whether it was the violence or the faith-issues that led to the outcry, or a bit of both is debatable.

Needless to say, only one additional episode was aired, with another already in the can left unseen.

So, the show itself—Is it any good?

In a word-Yes.

In more words—It is excellent!

I will seek further episodes and lament the loss of what may very well have been a classic.

It is mature, well-played, and quite well-staged. [Sarafian would go on to lens the iconic 70’s film Vanishing Point.]

This single episode stands head and shoulders above most predictable fare of the time [and ours.]

A Western by Jules Verne?

 

The tar on the roof of the railway station at Sierra Blanca was molten in a July sun at noonday. It had been a mistake to swab the surface with stuff that would melt at a temperature of 100 unshaded. Alternation of liquefaction and congealment had let the layers of pebbles ultimately slip and stop, slip and stop until half of them had slid off the steep eaves into the tin gutter, which had also caught the drippings of tar until it was full of the mixture. Not much is done in this lazy town on the Mexican border of the United States, and what is done once is hardly ever done over again, even by the railroad people, who are all activity as contrast with the local stagnation.

This story, titled Two Alike and a Lady, is attributed to Jules Verne, the Father Hard Science Fiction.

A quick check shows that Verne wrote 36 short stories along with his sundry novels and plays. This story is not listed among that tally.

His son, Michel, picked up his father’s pen upon his death and contributed more under his father’s name, at least three of the Michel penned stories under the name of Jules have been discovered.

Whether this is an actual Jules Verne tale or one of his son’s continuations we don’t know for certain.

It originally appeared in serial form in The Delphos Daily Herald newspaper of Delphos, Ohio. The story began on July 30, 1895.

The author is most definitely listed as Jules Verne.

We must note that Mr. Verne was still alive and producing at the time but…

As far as I can tell and as far as anthologist John Richard Stephens can tell the story appeared nowhere else.

It would seem odd that at this esteemed point in his career that Mr. Verne could only get a story published in a newspaper in Ohio as opposed to his native France.

We must keep in mind this was also a time of newspaper hoaxing and exceptionally loose copyright laws.

The odds are stacked in the favor of a local writer assuming the nom de plume and picking up the check.

Provenance aside, how is this Western tale?

In a word, slight.

It starts promisingly enough with good character and local flavor, then heads into an odd bit of identical twin flummery and an escape from “Wild Indians” using a meteor-magneto hand railway car—which one would assume was the purported Verne-element.

As a fan of Mr. Verne, this story proves doubtful. Where Verne, like his modern correlate Michael Crichton, always took pains to explain how his “future tech” would operate in a way that led to believability, I never quite got a handle on the meteor-dynamo mechanism despite long passages explaining its operation.

The story is a curiosity, I’m not sorry I read it, but I wouldn’t necessarily direct others to seek it out.

Whiplash “The Solid Gold Brigade”

 

What do you get if you take a Western created by future Star Trek creator Gene Rodenberry, cast Mission: Impossible’s Mr. Phelps [Peter Graves] and set it during Australia’s Gold Rush of the 1850s and actually shoot it Down Under?

Well, you get this intriguing 1960 series.

Graves plays Christopher Cobb, loosely based on the real-life Freeman Cobb of the Cobb and Co. stagecoach line.

This episode is of the formulary variety, it moves at a brisk pace and has surprisingly cold-blooded villains.

The actual locations are a plus with Western tropes appearing with kangaroos and much action taking plus along beach coast adding to the watchability.

What is a little less is, Mr. Graves. Never a compelling actor, here his presence adds little to the proceedings.

One can’t help but think, a stronger lead would put this unusual concoction over the top and be far better remembered today.

Not essential, but well worth viewing at least a single episode for Western television aficionados.

The Fastest Gun in the Pulpit by Jack Ehrlich

 

I've known fear all my life. But I always knew how bad it made a man stink if you let it have sway.

This 1972 novel from Ehrlich was his first Western. Prior to this effort he dabbled in courtroom novels and like fare dealing with the criminal justice system. These are good works, and he knows that world. He combined both successfully with his Western The Chatham Killing [also reviewed on this blog.]

Here we have a gunman who is preternaturally fast with a gun stumble into the gig of assuming the identity of a pastor for a besieged town.

The novel is a fast-paced curious affair. Curious in the sense that the gunplay is a bit on the “Too good to be true” side of things and yet handled with a light touch that makes it go down fine.

What prevents it from being an unkillable loner knockoff is Ehrlich’s humor living inside the amiable mind of our Pretended Pastor Protagonist and the occasional marks of deeper maturity that come to the fore.

This is a fine Western with something to say, disguised as a formulary knock-off.

I enjoyed it a good deal, as I did our “Pastor’s” newly won view of the world.

It's peculiar how things you do every day you do so much more slow and calculated when you figure it may be the last time.

Fine advice for all.

Fistful of Dollars

 

Marisol: Why do you do this for us?

Stranger: Why? Because I knew someone like you once and there was no one there to help.

This, this is where IT started.

What is the IT of that sentence?

Well, try this on for size.

The beginnings of Clint Eastwood as icon and not mere, “Didn’t he used to be on Rawhide?”

It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when nobody really knew the name.

Clint was the tenth choice. Tenth!

First in the roster was Henry Fonda, then Charles Bronson, then Henry Silva, Rory Calhoun, Tony Russel, Steve Reeves, Ty Hardin and then James Coburn. These far better known [at the time] American actors all said, “No, thanks.”

Leone turned next to Richard Harrison, who also took a pass but Harrison, who was also not impressed with the script, suggested little known Clint Eastwood who could at least “Look convincingly cowboy.”

Leone, pressed for time, took a chance.

Watch that opening scene, hell, watch the entire film, does this look like a tenth choice performance?

Laconic swaggering cool never had it so good.

Bonus: Watch Clint’s gun-handling, from drawing, good wrist, and holster return. He’s doin’ it all. No less an authority than Nicole “Fastdraw” Franks gives Mr. Eastwood high marks for pistolry depiction.

Eastwood bit at the script, recognizing it as a take on the chambara film, Yojimbo, with a bit of Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest thrown in.

He picked up his own costume in a Hollywood thrift store and flew to Europe for this low-budget production by a no-name director, with this non-marquee star.

This film is also the beginning of Sergio Leone as a visual stylist that would go on to shape how action is framed.

Consider this, Leone had only directed a single film before this one, the not well received peplum The Colossus of Rhodes. There is nothing in that film, nothing, that says “Greatness is to come.”

He directed a mere handful after this film but each of these from unusual framing, to tracking action with a fluid camera in the days before Figg Rigs, drones, and light handhelds, in the days when such camera gymnastics were H-A-R-D—he did it anyway.

The static drawn out calm before the storm action pieces that have been cribbed by anyone and everyone including Mr. Tarantino who sings the praises of this film and its two follow-ups as The Only Perfect Film Trilogy in cinematic history.

The visual cribbing goes way beyond the screen. There is not a comic book, film poster, or graphic novel that does not owe a tremendous debt to Mr. Leone’s framing.

This film is really where the soundtrack and film score as part of the film moves to the fore.

Sure, we have memorable film music prior to this—Bernard Herrman’s work in Hitchcock’s Psycho being a memorable high point.

But it was composer Ennio Morricone and Sergio Leone who began something that had not been done before, they made the score a character in the film.

The score introduces characters. The score dictates the pace of the scene. The score matches film editing in syncopation—such as it had not been done before.

This film began anti-hero cool. This film launched a genre.

This film inspired thousands of films, books, TV shows, comic books, graphic novels, film scores, fashion trends etc. whether they were overtly Western or not.

The film viewed in isolation with no context holds up damn well.

But…if one goes in with an informed eye, an eye that really looks at everything that is on the screen [I mean everything] an ear that listens to all.

Then, and only then do we see not something of mere historic significance in the arts. We see something that is still crafted far better than much of what we see today that has far better budgets, far better gear, and far better tech.

What the present imitators don’t have are the maverick “Let’s go for broke and make our own thing” brio of the trio of Leone, Eastwood, and Morricone.

And to think this is merely the first film of an ever ascending trilogy.

Remarkable.

November Joe: Detective of the Woods by Hesketh Prichard

 

“What are you looking for?” said he.

“The tracks of the murderer.”

“You won't find them. He didn't make none.”

I pointed out the spot where the ground was torn.

“The lumberman that found him --spiked boots,” said November.

“How do you know he was not the murderer?”

“He didn't get here till Lyon had been dead for hours. Compare his tracks with Lyon’s… much fresher. No, Mr. Sport, that cock won’t fight.”

Let’s say you are a Sherlock Holmes fan and wished it was less urban, less Victorian saturated. Instead, you desired that same deductive prowess taken to the woods where good scoutcraft provided the crux for the powers of observation.

Well, if that’s the case, you’re in luck. This 1913 volume of linked short stories follows half-breed Canadian guide, Joe November though a series of crimes where good scoutcraft is at the fore.

The author knows of what he speaks having been a big game hunter and avid woodsman himself. He authored two non-fiction books on scoutcraft Through Trackless Labrador and Hunting-Camps in Wood and Wilderness. He brings that real life knowledge to bear on these stories.

The scoutcraft is sound but are the stories?

If one’s tolerance is high for the Rube Goldberg plotting of Doyle and like puzzle authors who self-admit that all lives or dies on the basis of how well the skein of tangled yarn holds, then you may find enjoyment here.

The stories are serviceable, but that is coming from a reader who finds convoluted dénouements a bit tiring after more than one.

Not a bad read but consider the caveats offered.

“Sugar” by Tom McGuane

 

When the cow tried to get back to the herd, I knew I would ride cutting horses for the rest of my life. With liquid quickness, the mare countered every move that the cow made. Riding her on a slack rein gave me a sense of controlled freefall. Centered between the ears of my horse as if in the sites of a rifle, the cow faked and dodged. Much of the time I didn't know where I was or where the cow was, and I was certainly no help to the horse. By the time I picked up the reins to stop, I was addicted to the thrilling shared movement of cutting, sometimes close to violence, which was well beyond what the human body could ever discover on its own.

This short non-fiction piece by the fine writer, Tom McGuane, can be found in his collection Some Horses.

It tells of the love affair with cutting horses that he and his wife both engaged in.

It nails the feelings of a novice rider versus the experienced rider. It takes us to competition and gets those details right, too; the missed turn-offs, the annoyances of pulling a trailer in traffic, the jittery nerves of competitive exposure, even the low-level “Me vs. You” between man and wife competing in the same event.

This man loved horses, but he is no Dan “Buck” Brannaman, and that makes the story all the more accessible for we lower-level riders. We can feel what he feels where as what “Horse Whisperers” do is an ineffable work of art, almost unrelatable beyond the beauty of witnessing the relationship.

A brief work but it does more to get “Man & Horse” dynamics perfect than many a longer tale in a genre that always features horses but seldom gets them right beyond the color.

Superlative!

The Threepersons Hunt by Brian Garfield

 

Fifty yards north of the station stood the roadhouse, the Broken Arrow, set back behind its dusty parking lot. It was a big rectangle sided with brown boards; there were no windows at all. The name of the place was painted in a faded crescent across the movie-set false front and an illuminated Coors Beer sign overhung the front door. The place had a forbidding aspect, like a slaughterhouse: the grim solid walls without windows gave the impression someone was ashamed of what went on inside.

This neo-Western penned in the 1970s by the talented Mr. Garfield is set in the southwest of the 70s.

We follow a Navajo law officer by the name of Sam Watchman as he is assigned to trail an escaped Apache Convict named Threepersons.

The landscape, the heat, the inter-tribal animosity, the outside press of Anglo ostracism are all portrayed beautifully.

We ride with Watchman on his contemporary manhunt for the first half of the novel and then…and then we begin to insert politics, a convoluted conspiracy involving water-rights, infidelity, past crimes remote to us and…well, the trouble is, the manhunt and Watchman on his on are compelling as hell. These additional complications, less so.

This is a well-written briskly paced novel.

What’s good is very good.

What did not hold this reader may hold others.

The Weight of a Dead Man by Weston Ochse & Yvonne Navarro

 

“You staring at me like you want to have my child,” the gunslinger said, his words like sawdust.

This tale has an intriguing premise, it is a mash-up of Old West adventure with Nate Dupes, a grandson of Edgar Allan Poe’s ratiocinating detective C. Auguste Dupin, working as a Pinkerton agent.

I’m all for experimentation with a bit of Jules Verne overlay of “streampunkish” elements but…this traipses a bit too far into incredulity for this reader’s tastes.

Wildy complicated plotting, convoluted secret societies with baroque motives, masters of disguise that stretch credulity to the breaking point.

Who travels with just the right amount of gear in their carpet bag to transform from a debonair French cosmopolitan to an authentic Chinese “coolie” in the blink of an eye?

Perhaps as a television episode or a graphic novel where such events pass quickly like confection this sates, but in prose where the reader is free to ponder loose elements at leisure…

Not unskillfully written, but this reader lacks the suspension of disbelief required for this journey.

The Crew of the Foraker by Steve Frazee

 

They were taking Jack Muirhead to the brig on Samar. The crew of the Foraker, an old destroyer escort now, watched with a quietness that was not healthy. Sullenly we watched, crowding the quarter deck as close as we dared, standing on the torpedo deck, sitting aft on the depth charge racks. Signalman and quartermasters stalled around the flag bag, staring down

In our prior offering we looked at a WWI story by a noted Western author, here we follow another Western author [a good one at that] into the Second World War.

This 1953 Naval story is not one of combat, rather it is a tale of a hated commanding officer and the long brooding of revenge.

It is a mature theme, and Frazee seems the man to pull it off but…alas, it feels a bit too pat, a bit rushed, a bit underdeveloped.

Strangely this tale feels more dated than his Westerns although it is of a time far more recent than our Frontier Western past.

Frazee is a stalwart author, and I will return to him again, but likely only in his main genre.

“Fear” by James Warner Bellah

 

“Afraid? Who isn’t afraid? But it doesn’t do any good to brood over it.”

James Warner Bellah, the author of many a fine Cavalry tale, those fine enough to be adapted to the screen by the late great John Ford, here brings his military insight to a World War I flying squadron.

We have a tale of a newly arrived pilot learning the ropes of combat in the days of canvas covered wood framed biplanes.

Bellah’s history is accurate. His feel for the realities of “being in the mix” of combat are just as sure as his cavalry work.

This is essentially Red Badge of Courage of the skies.

We live inside the head of the new arrival. Does he or doesn’t he have what it takes to do what must be done in battle?

His struggles are real. His tightrope walk of cowardice and duty are just as tangible.

Those looking for the surface charms of superhuman exploits such as found in Lee Child, Jack Carr, Mark Greaney et al. may not like what they find here.

Here is no superhuman—here we have nothing but humanity—fearful and yet plodding on.

For duty? Maybe not.

“Our job is a funny one, and we’re not here for ourselves, and were not here to be heroes or to get in the newspapers. The V. C.’s [Victoria Crosses] are few and far between.” He raised himself upon his elbow. “I’m not preaching self-abasement and a greater loyalty to a cause that is right, mind you. I don’t know anything about causes or who started the war or why, and I don’t care. I’m preaching C Flight and the lives of five men.”

Bellah nails what most true accounts understand, incredible feats of heroism and what we might term patriotic fervor are often more microcosmic than that. It is duty, loyalty, respect and, I’ll say it, love, for the flesh and blood right there in the trenches with you. The man or woman beside you. The “Big Cause” fades, the meme/headline/creed du jour dissipates.

Slogans and cheers are surface costumes for a character we haven’t stepped up to in actuality.

Whereas the person next to you in a struggle is bone-deep and real.

The men in this story live on that edge—an edge of “We are scared as hell, but let’s not dwell on it.”

“Cruel, thin, casual talk clicking against their teeth in nervous haste; the commercial talk of men bartering their lives against each tick of the clock; men caught like rats in a trap, with no escape but death or a lucky chance like Mallory’s. Caught and yet denying the trap—laughing at it until the low roof of the mess shack rumbled with the echo; drowning it in whisky for the night.

These men are no Mitch Rapp. No Jack Reacher.

They are real men and all the more heroic for it.

Every sentence of Mr. Bellah’s prose flavors the mood.

“The cold wet mist lay upon the fields like a soft veil drawn across the face of an old woman who had died in the night.”

A work of adult action, written by a mature mind for mature minds.

And the lesson holds for us all.

“Afraid? Who isn’t afraid” But it doesn’t do any good to brood over it.”

Bad Blood by John Sandford

Virgil went out the door, feeling a cop-like elation: he had them. But even as he went, he thought, Should I be happy that I was right, and that children are being abused? So he said that to Jenkins: “I got this rush, you know, being right about this. Being right about kids getting abused.”

“That’s not why you got the rush,” Jenkins said. “You got the rush because we’re going to stop it.”

“That’s right,” Virgil said. “I like your reconceptualization.”

“I’m really good at that,” Jenkins said. “Let me get some stuff out of Shrake’s trunk.”

What he got out of Shrake’s trunk were a bulletproof vest and two M16s with low-light Red-Dot scopes and ten thirty-round magazines. “I brought one for you, if you want it,” he said.

“Might be a little overgunned,” Virgil said.

Jenkins said, “I’ve never been overgunned. I have been under-gunned. After that happened, I reconceptualized.”

The third “not a Western” by John Sandford I’ve offered here. I justify as it is in the realm of rural cop/police procedural that works by Craig Johnson and C.J. Box often float under the radar with.

Box and Johnson are both fine writers, but it strikes me that Sandford is the brisker and sturdiest of them all. Add to that, a procedural verisimilitude no doubt furnished by Sandford’s years as a crime reporter, and you have rock-solid work.

This is another in the rural Minnesota, Virgil Flowers series. Speedy entertainment for those who don’t mind their Law Dogs of more recent vintage and remind themselves that many a fine Western is set in the wilds of Minnesota, so why not this modern incarnation?

I repeat, rock solid stuff. 

The Last Kind Words Saloon by Larry McMurtry

 

“Bat Masterson claims you're the best pistol shot in the West,” Doc said. “He says you can hit a coyote at four hundred yards.”

“Hell, I couldn't even see a dang coyote if it was that far away, unless they painted it red,” Wyatt said. “Bat should let me do my own bragging if he can't manage to be credible.”

“All right then, what's the furthest distance you could hit a fat man?” Doc persisted, determined to get at least the elements of conversation out of the taciturn Wyatt, who ignored the question.

Here we have the esteemed Mr. McMurtry’s last western. It is a slim volume in comparison with his epic work.

Slim in scale but not necessarily in scope of inclusion.

McMurtry has packed the tale with real life personages, from Wyatt Earp, to Doc Holliday, to Buffalo Bill, Quanah Parker, Charlie Goodnight and many many more.

The people may have existed and some of the situations are true but, the author has seen fit to fiddle with timelines, meetings and events to suit his whim.

It reminds me of Quentin Tarantino killing Hitler in Inglorious Basterds or likewise killing Manson in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; the people are real, as is some of the history, but clearly, not all of it.

McMurtry calls this work a “ballad in prose whose characters are afloat in time.”

It may not match the power of the Lonesome Dove quartet of novels, but there is more than enough of the McMurtry talent on display for fans of the man to go along with his joshing of history.

Brief, definitely McMurtry, and I enjoyed the hell out of it.

Film Spotlight: Tin Star

Hickman: As long as you're wearing that badge, you got to walk up, tell ‘em to throw ‘em up, then watch which way his hands move. They go up, you got yourself a prisoner. They go down, he's dead...or you are. A decent man doesn't want to kill. But if you're going to shoot, you shoot to kill.

That’s bounty hunter, Morg Hickman [Henry Fonda] to a neophyte sheriff played by Anthony Perkins.

This Anthony Mann directed Western acts as a study in how to be aware, how to be a lawman, how to be awake, and how to be appreciative.

A tight script by Dudley Nichols and superlative direction by Anthony Mann [note the composition of each shot.] Each set-up is well considered. If we note the first shot and the last shot are framed the same as narrative bookends; it lets us know we are in the hands of an artist, a craftsman who has given loving thought to the material at hand.

Henry Fonda is low key but terrific as the loner, his B-story with a widow and her son have the stuff of true sincerity about it.

This role seems a sort of template for his 2-season run as Chief Marshal Simon Fry in the 1959-61 TV series The Deputy.

Also strong is Anthony “Norman Bates” Perkins as the young sheriff, and John McIntire as the town doc.

BTW-The young widow is played by Betsy Palmer, some may know her as Jason Voorhees mother in the original Friday the 13^th. See her here when she got to play in better fare.

Fans of Westerns will enjoy.

Fans of lawman wisdom, doubly so.

Come for the story, the lessons, the heart and revel in the craft of each shot composition.

While not a classic in the old school sense, stack it up against any mass produced “action” flick today, and well, you got yourself a bonafide mature piece of art right here.

Ford County: Stories by John Grisham

 

Clanton's most ambitious hustler was a tractor dealer named Bobby Carl Leach. From a large gravel sales lot on the highway north of town, Bobby Carl built an empire that, at one time or another, included a backhoe and dozer service, a fleet of pulpwood trucks, two all-you-can-eat catfish cabins, a motel, some raw timberland upon which the sheriff found marijuana in cultivation, and a collection of real estate that primarily comprised empty buildings scattered around Clanton. Most of them eventually burned.

A collection of short fiction by the noted author of legal thrillers. This one scoots under the Western radar for the short story “Casino” a modern tale of scammery surrounding an Indian Reservation casino.

I’ve read a few of Mr. Grisham’s legal thrillers in the past and liked them. This is his foray into short fiction. Some legal. Most not. All set in the same Southern County. 

The man has an eye and an ear. The people ring true.

The stories?

Some are cynical, some are rambunctious with redneck riotous behavior, some are a gut-punch.

I cried at the last one.

This book tells me I need to re-evaluate the man.

Superlative stuff.

Rider from Thunder Mountain by Clair Huffaker

 

Still staring down at the Indian camp, Kamas said “What can they do to a man to keep him shrieking like that?”

Larimer crossed his arms in the top of the dirt and embankment and leaned forward. “Quite a few things.”

Kanas seemed frozen where he stood. “I didn't think a man like Tronco would break that way--so fast.”

“White babies learn early that if they yell long enough and loud enough somebody’ll do something for them. Indian kids learn yellin’ brings the wolves down on them, or a hand over their mouth and nose to stop their breathing. Maybe that's somethin’ to do with it.”

This 1957 Fawcett Crest novel is a brisk 128 pages.

It reads swift, lean and mean.

It starts out formulaic, and perhaps never leaves formula behind but we are in such capable hands that formula turns from familiar brew to whiskey neat.

Even with its brisk pace and action-laden plot, character is never left behind.

We see them all. I easily pictured Robert Culp in his cool capable mode walking the screen in my imaginary film of this novel.

If one enjoys the leanness of a fine Elmore Leonard Western, well, this may be what the doctor ordered.

Tall in the West by Vechel Howard

 

“The buffalo hunters were gaunt and bearded. Their blood-stained clothes were ragged and their aspect as they sat on their shaggy horses gazing down at the figure in the canyon was almost as macabre and predatory as the scavengers they had frightened away.”

This 1958 Fawcett Gold Medal Western written by playwright Howard, who also wrote under the name Howard Rigsby, is a curious affair.

We have a story reminiscent of the 1965 TV series A Man Called Shenandoah starring Robert Horton, in which our amnesiac protagonist wanders the West in search of himself.

The first half of the novel is rather successful as we deal with our character’s attempts in real time. In the second half the author shifts to an almost journalistic style, recording the far travels and experiences of our searcher after the fact. It reads almost dialogue free and seems more an outline for an epic novel.

The dialogue-free nature is a curious choice as Mr. Howard/Rigsby was also a playwright, a genre almost dictated by dialogue demands.

I enjoyed the first half of the novel very much and would love to have seen the second half developed in more detail as follows the dictates of the author’s own plotting.

One is left with the feeling that this was an epic in the making and the author simply ran up against deadline.

Mixed feelings, but what is good, is quite good.

Short Story Spotlight: “No Luck At All” by Rod Miller

 

“The only shot fired there had been the one that blew the hind leg off the donkey. Still harnessed to the cart, it appeared to have bled slowly to death, hobbling in circles hauling its grisly load until falling dead in the shafts.”

This tale of Texas Rangers by poet Rod Miller can be found in the anthology Texas Rangers edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg.

There are some other fine tales within but, to this reader’s eye this one stands tall.

Tall as the legendary Rangers themselves.

It packs a wallop in a tight page count and shies away from formula.

Well, worth seeking out.

A Frontier Phrase Worth Resurrecting: “He Bubbles Pure"

 

[Excerpted from our book The Frontier Stoic: Life Lessons from Those Who Lived a Life.]

“He bubbles pure.”

·        Said of a man who stays solid, friendly, copacetic, capable in all situations.

·        In a land where water sources were few and far between and these were often muddied, slurried with cattle refuse, undrinkable alkali, or deliberately poisoned via a butchered animal left to rot in its depths…

·        Often water had to be reached via digging to the water table and filtering sand, silt and mud from the precious commodity using a shirttail as a filter.

·        In such a land, springs that bubbled pure clear clean water were valued at “a price above rubies.

·        In such a world, good companions were equally valued.

·        Men and women without grit, without merit without grace to face what was before them each and everyday added to the hardship.

·        In a modern world where a poor traveling companion who gets “hangry” on a long car trip…well, magnify that by 93 and put that “wannabe stalwart” under true pressure.

·        Can they be said to “Bubble pure” no matter the terrain?

·        Can it be said of you?

“He bubbles pure” can only be said of those whose dispositions who stay sunny even when it’s raining.

·        They don’t bubble silt and mud because of a spot of traffic, a news link to raise a fist at, a longish wait in the drive-thru line.

·        Springs bubble pure because that’s what they do, that’s what they are.

·        They may spring from the ground but they do not taste of it.

·        They do not take on its earthy qualities.

We find this sentiment likewise expressed in this phrase from Bacon’s The Advancement of Learning,

“The sun passeth through pollutions and itself remains as pure as before.”

May we all be that capable Man or Woman of grit.

That affable companion still smiling heartily noontide or night.

Rain or shine.

May we all bubble pure!

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Lessons from Jim Bridger, Mountain Man

 

[All extracts taken from Biographical Sketch of James Bridger: Mountaineer, Trapper, and Guide (1905) by General Grenville M. Dodge.]

“After the death of his father and mother Bridger had to support himself and sister. He got together money enough to buy a flatboat ferry, and when ten years of age made a living by running that ferry to St. Louis. When he was thirteen years old he was apprenticed to Phil Cromer to learn the blacksmith's trade. Becoming tired of this, in 1822 he hired out to a party of trappers under General Ashley, who were en route to the mountains. As a boy he was shrewd, had keen faculties of observation, and said when he went with the trappers that the money he earned would go to his sister.”

·        At the age of 10 purchases a flatboat and begins a ferry business.

·        At 13 apprentices to learn smithing.

·        Soon after that hits the frontier.

·        The wonder is not at the loss of independence and industry in the youth of today, but to look at the “grownups” we have become and ask ourselves, “Do we have the cojones to do anything as intrepid as this right now, well past the age of majority?”

·        I wager we all come up short.

·        If there are stones to cast, t’is the self that should be bruised.

“One of the arrow heads which Bridger received in his back on this occasion remained there for nearly three years, or until the middle of August, 1835. At that time Dr. Marcus Whitman was at the rendezvous on Green River en route to Oregon. Bridger was also there, and Dr. Whitman extracted the arrow from his back. The operation was a difficult one, because the arrow was hooked at the point by striking a large bone, and a cartilaginous substance had grown around it. The doctor pursued the operation with great self-possession and perseverance, and his patient manifested equal firmness. The Indians looked on meantime with countenances indicating wonder, and in their own peculiar manner expressed great astonishment when it was extracted. The arrow was of iron and about three inches long."

·        Carried a 3” inches steel arrowhead in his body for three years and never stopped questing in the frontier.

·        How familiar is this or similar refrains, “I would go do such and such with you but my sciatica [insert “Not cartilaginous encased arrowhead malady” here].

·        Seems we have some mannin’ up to do.

[I offer the next lengthy extract as an example of observational prowess. Keep in mind, he is in the company of military men with no phones and candy crush to distract them, that is, fellow observers. When you get to the end, yes, marvel at Mr. Bridger’s abilities, but don’t mock the “blind” cavalry men; ask yourself honestly how you would fare? I wager most of us  would be distant third place to any man in a saddle that day.]

Captain H. E. Palmer, Eleventh Kansas Cavalry, Acting Asst. Adjt. Genl. to General P. E. Conner, gives this description of the Indian Camp on Tongue River, August 26, 1865. "Left Piney Fork at 6.45 a. m. Traveled north over a beautiful country until about 8 a.m., when our advance reached the top of the ridge dividing the waters of the Powder from that of the Tongue River. I was riding in the extreme advance in company with Major Bridger. We were 2,000 yards at least ahead of the General and his staff; our Pawnee scouts were on each flank and a little in advance; at that time there was no advance guard immediately in front. As the Major and myself reached the top of the hill we voluntarily halted our steeds. I raised my field glass to my eyes and took in the grandest view that I had ever seen. I could see the north end of the Big Horn range, and away beyond the faint outline of the mountains beyond the Yellowstone. Away to the northeast the Wolf Mountain range was distinctly visible. Immediately before us lay the valley of Peneau creek, now called Prairie Dog creek, and beyond the Little Goose, Big Goose and Tongue River valleys, and many other tributary streams. The morning was clear and bright, with not a breath of air stirring. The old Major, sitting upon his horse with his eyes shaded with his hands, had been telling me for an hour or more about his Indian life—his forty years experience on the plains, telling me how to trail Indians and distinguish the tracks of different tribes; how every spear of grass, every tree and shrub and stone was a compass to the experienced trapper and hunter—a subject that I had discussed with him nearly every day. During the winter of 1863 I had contributed to help Mrs. Bridger and the rest of the family, all of which fact's the Major had been acquainted with, which induced him to treat me as an old-time friend.

As I lowered my glass the Major said: 'Do you see those ere columns of smoke over yonder?' I replied: 'Where, Major?' to which he answered: 'Over there by that ere saddle,' meaning a depression in the hills not unlike the shape of a saddle, pointing at the same time to a point nearly fifty miles away. I again raised my glasses to my eyes and took a long, earnest look, and for the life of me could not see any column of smoke, even with a strong field glass. The Major was looking without any artificial help. The atmosphere seemed to be slightly hazy in the long distance like smoke, but there was no distinct columns of smoke in sight. As soon as the General and his staff arrived I called his attention to Major Bridger's discovery. The General raised his field glass and scanned the horizon closely. After a long look, he remarked that there were no columns of smoke to be seen. The Major quietly mounted his horse and rode on. I asked the General to look again as the Major was very confident that he could see columns of smoke, which of course indicated an Indian village. The General made another examination and again asserted that there was no column of smoke. However, to satisfy curiosity and to give our guides no chance to claim that they had shown us an Indian village and we would not attack it, he suggested to Captain Frank North, who was riding with his staff, that he go with seven of his Indians in the direction indicated to reconnoitre and report to us at Peneau Creek or Tongue River, down which we were to march. I galloped on and overtook the Major, and as I came up to him overheard him remark about 'these damn paper collar soldiers telling him there was no columns of smoke. The old man was very indignant at our doubting his ability to outsee us, with the aid of field glasses even. Just after sunset on August 27 two of the Pawnees who went out with Captain North towards Bridger's column of smoke two days previous came into camp with the information that Captain had been correct.

·        Name the color of the last car you passed. Do this whether it was just now or two days ago.

·        Ask yourself is there a difference between how Mr. Bridger saw and how you interface with the world.

While engaged in this thorough system of trapping, no object of interest escaped his scrutiny, and when once known it was ever after remembered. He could describe with the minutest accuracy places that perhaps he had visited but once, and that many years before, and he could travel in almost a direct line from one point to another in the greatest distances, with certainty of always making his goal. He pursued his trapping expeditions north to the British possessions, south far into New Mexico and west to the Pacific Ocean, and in this way became acquainted with all the Indian tribes in the country, and by long intercourse with them learned their languages, and became familiar with all their signs. He adopted their habits, conformed to their customs, became imbued with all their superstitions, and at length excelled them in strategy.

·        A man who immersed to learn.

·        He transcended culture by embedding in it.

·        If any us flatter ourselves that we may be made of such stuff, I offer that I see people who won’t mix with MAGA, or Progressives, or this or that fellow Citizen who speaks their same language and buys milk in the same store, and yet we are to believe that we would be an able traveler in new cultures in hostile land. Able to befriend the alien when we can’t even be loving on familiar ground over trivial “differences”?

Bridger was also a great Indian fighter, and I have heard two things said of him by the best plainsmen of this time; that he did not know what fear was, and that he never once lost his bearings, either on the plains or in the mountains.

·        Let us ask ourselves, when was the last time we went where we knew nothing?

·        Read without a guide? Tasted the unfamiliar? Sniffed the new fragrance?

·        Frontiers can be new in many realms, if our habits are landlocked in small realms, maybe we could bend a little and explore small before we go big.

·        Test the waters so to speak.

As a guide he was without an equal, and this is the testimony of everyone who ever employed him. He was a born topographer, the whole West was mapped out in his mind, and such was his instinctive sense of locality and direction that it used to be said of him that he could smell his way where he could not see it. He was a complete master of plains and woodcraft, equal to any emergency, full of resources to overcome any obstacle, and I came to learn gradually how it was that for months such men could live without food except what the country afforded in that wild region. In a few hours they would put together a bullboat and put us across any stream. Nothing escaped their vision, the dropping of a stick or breaking of a twig, the turning of the growing grass, all brought knowledge to them, and they could tell who or what had done it. A single horse or Indian could not cross the trail but that they discovered it, and could tell how long since they passed. Their methods of hunting game were perfect, and we were never out of meat. Herbs, roots, berries, bark of trees and everything that was edible they knew. They could minister to the sick, dress wounds—in fact in all my experience I never saw Bridger or the other voyagers of the plains and mountains meet any obstacle they could not overcome.

While Bridger was not an educated man, still any country that he had ever seen he could fully and intelligently describe, and could make a very correct estimate of the country surrounding it. He could make a map of any country he had ever traveled over, mark out its streams and mountains and the obstacles in it correctly, so that there was no trouble in following it and fully understanding it. He never claimed knowledge that he did not have of the country, or its history and surroundings, and was positive in his statements in relation to it. He was a good judge of human nature. His comments upon people that he had met and been with were always intelligent and seldom critical. He always spoke of their good parts, and was universally respected by the mountain men, and looked upon as a leader, also by all the Indians. He was careful to never give his word without fulfilling it. He understood thoroughly the Indian character, their peculiarities and superstitions. He felt very keenly any loss of confidence in him or his judgment, especially when acting as guide, and when he struck a country or trail he was not familiar with he would frankly say so, but would often say he could take our party up to the point we wanted to reach. As a guide I do not think he had his equal upon the plains.

He could make a map of any country he had ever traveled over, mark out its streams and mountains and the obstacles in it correctly, so that there was no trouble in following it and fully understanding it.

·        Could we?

He never claimed knowledge that he did not have…

·        Can we claim that?

His comments upon people that he had met and been with were always intelligent and seldom critical.

·        Can we say that? A brief survey of posts often reveals a seeming love of the critical.

He always spoke of their good parts…

·        Can we say that? Lord, I hope so.

He felt very keenly any loss of confidence in him or his judgment, especially when acting as guide, and when he struck a country or trail he was not familiar with he would frankly say so…

·        Do we freely admit the limits of our knowledge, or do we feel the need to pronounce on and on and on…

As a guide I do not think he had his equal upon the plains.

·        That is the evaluation of a pragmatic military mind.

·        May we admire and aspire.

To bucking up like Jim Bridger!

A Man to Match the Mountains!

T’SUH!!!!

Resources for Livin’ the Warrior Life, Not Just Readin’ About It

The Black Box Warehouse

https://www.extremeselfprotection.com/

The Indigenous Ability Blog

https://indigenousability.blogspot.com/

The Rough ‘n’ Tumble Raconteur Podcast

https://anchor.fm/mark-hatmaker