“Enter Ramona, Laughing” by Wayne Ude

 

“As usual in the evening, Ramona Laughing sits on a stool at the bar’s end farthest from the door and stares at her hands, spread out before her on the polished bar top. They are small hands, like her grandmother's, but useless: good only to excite a man. Ramona's glass is neglected, half filled with warming beer. The bar as yet is quiet; it will fill up later, and Ramona may or may not notice: she also is quiet tonight. Some nights she may be feverish in her conviviality, and others sullen, almost murderous in her silence. She once stabbed a man, though not seriously, and it is widely agreed that he should have known better.

This 1975 story from Ude was selected by Jon Lewis as one of the 100 Best Western Short Stories of all time. It was a devil to track down; I found it in the fall 1975 issue of Transatlantic Review. It was later collected into a slim anthology of like stories titled Buffalo and Other Stories.

This story clocks in at a mere 5 pages, but damn does it pack a whole lotta livin’ in that brief page count.

It captures despair, loss of connection with tribal culture, smalltown barroom desperation and a bit of “Taken for granted” indigenous mysticism.

In short, a mini masterpiece of observation, well worth a read by the mature reader who appreciates that the genre can do so much more, be so much more than formula.

Review in a single word: Superlative!

Over the Chihuahua and Santa Fe trails, 1847-1848: George Rutledge Gibson's Journal

 

George Rutledge was born in Virginia around 1810. He later studied law and opened a law office in Vincennes, Indiana, in 1834. During the early 1840s he moved his practice to Weston, Missouri.

He also tried his hand at journalism, that is, publishing his own newspapers, both of these ventures failed, perhaps so for his law practice as well for when the Mexican War started, Gibson volunteered and was elected a second lieutenant.

He was part of Colonel Stephen Watts Kearny's Army of the West, which left Fort Leavenworth for the occupation of New Mexico in 1846. He later became assistant quartermaster and commissary and accompanied Colonel Alexander Doniphan's forces to El Paso and Chihuahua, seeing action at the Battle of Brazito on 25 December 1846 and the Battle of Sacramento on 28 February 1847.

The first section of Gibson's journal begins when he left Chihuahua in April 1847. During the one-month journey, Gibson provided descriptions of the land and people and the several hardships he encountered. The second section of the journal details his eight-hundred-mile trip from Santa Fe to Fort Leavenworth beginning in April 1848, after his stay of about one year in Santa Fe. Again, Gibson recorded his adventures, impressions, and feelings along the way.

As per usual, Men and Women who have lived many lives are almost invariably interesting.

Picture the following eerie sight. The reality rivals anything in Cormac McCarthy’s nightmare lands in Blood Meridian.

Monday, April 5^th

We took a long rest at the stone corral in the bottom, where there are some cottonwoods, and then rode over the field which covers the intermediate ground between the mountains and is very extensive. The stench from the dead carcasses both of men and animals made our stay much shorter than it would have been, nor was the spectacle of the kind calculated to kindle our antipathys or resentments, for the skeletons of our Enemies were strewed over the ground, having been dragged out of their graves by the wolves, great numbers of which we saw even in the daytime. They had eaten all the flesh off, but the bones were very offensive, human flesh of all others creating the most disgusting smell. This animal seems to relish it above all others, for they dug them out of the Redoubts and left the dead oxen, horses and mules almost untouched. There are still many marks of the conflict, but everything of the least value has been carried away.

[I offer the following far more sedate counterpoint as showing the Frontier’s reverence for Books—the capitalization of Book is Mr. Gibson’s choice. The West was a literature hungry society. The novel mentioned was a new one on me, I have since acquired it and am enjoying the read. It always rewards to nourish with what those of yore nourished with.

Saturday, April 10^th

The day was as pleasant as could be wished for and having determined to remain all night to recruit our animals we spent the evening reading, Mr. Hoffman having brought for his own use several Books. Agnes Serle by Mrs. Pickering fell to my share, which I found interesting and it was quite a novelty to sit down in the wilds on the banks of a clear spring branch and read one of the latest and most fashionable novels of the day. They want of Books to read at our leisure moments has been a source of greater annoyance since we first came into the country, a vexation which has to be experienced to appreciate.

[The final 10 words in the following are the Wise moral here. Many of us would be happier if would but embrace this philosophical stiffness of soul.]

Wednesday, May 5h

I found that there had been no mail since February and I determined to await the arrival of one, the state of things being such as to require it, consequently the traders go on without me. I was in hopes I should find several letters in the office but there were none and I have to put up with what I can't help.

[Another eerie scene—92 mule heads double bordering the trail. Good Lord!]

May 10^th

We made an early start, the road leading down the valley and we found it very sandy. In 6 miles we reached the Willow Bar which is nothing but a bank 3 feet high, with water occasionally in a Pool, and not a single willow to be seen, if ever any grew there. A short distance this side we passed a formidable row of 92 mule heads placed in double-line which Mr Spire lost in one night in 1844 in a snow storm, frozen to death.

[One more curious event, there is so much more story here, and yet in an eventful life the following merits a mere single paragraph in a journal entry.]

Wednesday, May 7h

We have in company a strange customer, no other than a woman in mans clothes. She enlisted in Col. Gilpins Battalion and performed all her duties as a soldier, nor was her sex suspected until it is she disclosed it herself. There is nothing in her appearance suspicious as she mixes with the Teamsters as one of them, and smokes, chews and acts like the man. Her sex being discovered she was sent back to the States by this train and furnishes rough jokes daily for these men of hardy habits. She has not yet laid aside mans clothes.

To those who Dare to Live Many Lives!

Resources for Livin’ the Warrior Life

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

Lost Stage Valley by Frank Bonham

 

About the coach milled the usual crowd: relatives departing passengers, old men who read dead dreams of adventure in the dust of varnished panels, Mexican children waiting to run alongside the big yellow wheels is the stage rolled up the road.

This 1948 offering from the prolific Mr. Bonham was chosen by Editor Jon Lewis as one of The 100 Best Western Novels.

It is rife with well-observed ruminations of life, people, the land and the ever-rolling tapestry of Fate that we call history.

His terse pronouncements rival most more highly regarded craft found in what is termed “Literature” with a capital L.

I’ll allow a few more extracts to tell that tale.

Under a gray blanket of tattered clouds, they buried Tom Gilson in the cemetery on the hillside. Here lay Willie Crocker; a Mexican hostler dead of smallpox; and three immigrants who had been murdered in the past. Almost as many residents as some Western towns could boast.

Or this…

It had the appearance of a thriving town, but it was a rough one, dirty and careless of its appearance, like a bleary-eyed old man with food spilled on his vest. It was a town of church bells, crows, and rubbish, with little of beauty other than the tawniness of adobe walls against blue skies.

Or this summing up of how men often silently size up one another.

Holbrook's eyes picked him like a pawnbroker’s fingers, searching for the flaw he would go for in a scrap. But Broderick’s jaw was one for shaping anvils on, and his arms were long and the hands at the end of them big-knuckled and capable, and if he had a vulnerable spot it did not show.

Or here, his take on a tool in the feminine wiles’ arsenal.

And she did something with her eyes, a quick veiling of long lashes and the downward glance again, as though she had overstepped. He had seen it done before, but never so well.

The novel may come in the form of a formulaic Western and it contains it’s share of shoot-em-up scenes, but…these are never glorified.

Griff pondered. “Haunting is all in a man's mind. I saw Grandjon die tonight. Nobody ever died having less fun. He died because of the ball I put in his leg. Then I put a shot in McArdle. I guess he's done, too. Reminded me of a rabbit that almost made its hole, laying there kicking its life out and squealing like a pig. Death ain't pretty, Johnny. It ain't like going to sleep. It's big. Bigger than life, because people keep getting born, but nobody ever comes back carrying his coffin and brushin’ off the dirt. I've killed men in my time, and once in a while one walks in still, showing me the hole in his breast and saying, “You done that, pardner. Don't forget to tell God.”

Bonham’s West is both formulaic and real. Spangled how many of us like it, but also tattered, how others of us like it.

The girls were getting more haggard-looking. A couple had gone out and others came to take their places. The edge was off the fun, but the girls and patrons kept playing because they had things to forget or wanted something to remember.

Many who put pen to paper may hit their word count but how many, well, make it sing?

Or as Mr. Bonham would say:

“Powder’s cheap”, he said. “Anybody can talk loud, but how many can make it stick?”

Not a classic but head-and-shoulders above the herd.