Backstory

SIXTH RIDER at No. 44 on Amazon bestsellers list

2012-01-29T14:10:00.000-06:00

THE SIXTH RIDER has reached No. 44 on Amazon's Top 100 list.

Giving away a few thousand books to new friends

2012-01-29T02:38:00.001-06:00

As I write this, the Kinde edition of my novel THE SIXTH RIDER is now #1 in Kindle westerns, #3 in Kindle historicals, and #75 for all books. That's right, all Kindle books. Up 78,886 ranks from the day before.

How did I land my novel in the top 100 Kindle list on Amazon?

I'm giving it away.

Now, giving away books seems like a foolish idea, especially when the numbers can run into the thousands. In fact, the number of ebooks given away in the last 24 hours exceeds the entire print run of the original Doubleday hardcover.

But as any media weasel can tell you, the problem today is not throwing advertising at a mass audience, but figuring out how to reach just the right audience. In my case, readers who are likely to respond to the kinds of stories I tell -- dark and quirky (and I hope, literate). So, with no fanfare, I dropped the price on THE SIXTH RIDER from $3.99 to free to see what would happen. I'll spare you the details but the promotion was made possible by Amazon through a special program involving Amazon Prime.

Kindle readers are apparently very hungry for good, free books. The promotion began at 3 a.m. Saturday, and the response has been dramatic. The proof is in the screen shot of my sales figure from Amazon's Author Central, top.

On the face of it, it would seem I'm throwing away away thousands of dollars in royalties -- $13,950 in royalties, in fact, based on the thousands of copies given away so far. So, why would I do it? Simple: I want receptive readers. I've been frustrated in the past with the way publishers and bookstores have marketed my books. They always seem to be shelved in the wrong areas, or the covers suggest a traditional westerns, which I don't do. Some readers have even been angry that the book wasn't what they expected, and I can't say I blame them. I'd be mad, too.

Take HELLFIRE CANYON, for instance. It won the Spur Award for Best Mass Market Novel from the Western Writers of America and also was named a Kansas Notable Book by the state library, but the cover and cover copy didn't remotely match what the book was about. With the Kindle books, at least the ones that I have the rights to, I can control the covers and the copy. In the case of THE SIXTH RIDER, I even asked Johnny D. Boggs, a noted western writer and former president of WWA, to write an introduction that would signal the tone of the book. I wanted to make sure that readers knew what they were in for.

THE SIXTH RIDER has had steady but modest sales since being released as Kindle, but I always thought it could do better. The problem was finding a bigger audience. After all, my books get great reviews, they win awards, and I've have a small but passionate fan base. Now, in just one weekend, I have thousands of readers who were interested enough to download THE SIXTH RIDER and give it a try. And I think they'll like it enough to pay to give my other books a try as well, especially the trilogy that begins with HELLFIRE CANYON.

We'll see. If it works, I'll let you know. If it doesn't -- well, I'll let you know that, too.

The worst that can happen is that I gave a few thousand people a free copy of a book I believe in.

And if you're reading this before midnight Sunday, Jan. 29, when the promotion ends, then click on the heading above. It will take you to the Amazon page where you can download THE SIXTH RIDER to your Kindle device. If you like the book, please blog about it or post a review. After all, you got it for free.

Now, I have to get back to what I'm supposed to be doing: finishing my next book under contract, the first in a paranormal mystery series set in the Old West. I think readers who have liked my other stuff will love this. So, back to work.

DAMNATION ROAD in school libraries? Yes!

2012-01-02T03:38:00.004-06:00

I love it when my material connects with readers. Here's a surprising review posted over at A Book and A Hug, a site to help encourage kids to read. The reviewer, Robert L. Hicks (a high school librarian) does an admirable job of characterizing the book while cautioning teachers:

DAMNATION ROAD for mature readers, ages 14 and up.

This is the third book in the award winning "Jacob Gamble" trilogy (Spur Awards). Yes, westerns also have series novels. The first two novels being Hellfire Canyon and Canyon Diablo. Whereas in Hellfire the reader met Jacob at thirteen-years-old, now it is 1898 and the main character is nearing fifty. The wild west is disappearing. As with many westerners, Jacob is on the wrong side of the law, sometimes on the fence, and sometimes his heart coerces him to do what's right. The reader is always hoping he will finally redeem himself and eventually go straight.

Since the author grew up in Kansas and teaches at Emporia, Kansas, it's no surprise the setting of his novels are Missouri, Kansas cowtowns, and Oklahoma Territory. Will his life end like the real Oklahoma outlaw, Bill Doolin? While in the Guthrie jail, his defense lawyer ends up being the historical and colorful character,Temple Houston--son of the legendary father Sam and the model for Ferber's Cimarron (1929)main character, Yancy Cravat. Not trusting the legal system, Jacob escapes and flees to Cuba with Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders. Might the Colonel give him a pardon?

On the other hand, there's this temptation of a big haul from a train robbery--no such luck. And there's a corrupt Pinkerton dogging his trail but also a "too good to be true" tale of a lost, Confederate treasure from the lips of a mysteries and seductive woman he can't resist. Could this be his last chance? Isn't that what the West was, a place for second chances or where one could erase the past and begin anew?

This is no candy coated cowboy story. Representative of the real West, there is some profanity and soiled doves do populate the novel although readers are assumed worldly enough so practicing details of their profession are unnecessary. The author's literary strengths are fascinating, rounded characters, convincing dialog, real gun play, and yes, humor. As a cat lover, I appreciated this exchange: ' "I'm a Pinkerton operative"..."Shush," the old man said, "You'll wake Killer." But the cat seemed far from disturbed. "What did the subject buy?"..."Don't recall." Don't you keep a record of sales or--" "Now why the hell would I do that?"..."How do you know if you've made a profit?" "If there's money left over at the end of the month to buy coffee and beans, I've made a profit....You chew or smoke?" "I avoid tobacco,...It's a filthy habit"..."Killer don't think so." "What Killer may or may not think is immaterial...Describe his [Jacob's] companions." "...a wicked hellcat of a girl...She was trouble, wasn't she, Killer?" The old man scratched the cat beneath the chin and the cat roused briefly and shook his head annoyed. "Sorry, Princess Killer. I'll let you sleep." "What kind of a name is that for a common cat?" Jaeger asked. "It doesn't even make sense." "My damned cat," the old man said. "I can name it what I damned well please." '

For those interested in the novel's setting, historical personalities, and books the author probably utilized, pick up Paul I. Wellman's A Dynasty Of Western Outlaws (1961), Draw: The Greatest Gunfights Of The American West (2003),Bill Doolin, Outlaw O.T (1980) by Hanes, and any Glenn Shirley books such asTemple Houston: Lawyer With a Gun (1980) & West Of Hell's Fringe(1978). I might also suggest you play the 1973 Eagles Desperado album while reading such literature:

Go down, Bill Doolin, dont' you wonder why
Sooner or later we all have to die?
Sooner or later, that's a stone--cold fact,
Four men ride out and only three ride back.

2011 winner of the Spur Award for best original paperback novel. 280 pages.

Recommended by Robert L. Hicks, high school librarian

Do check out the rest of his rather lengthy review... he excerpts one of my favorite scenes, featuring a cat named Killer (those who know me will immediately recognize the feline), makes some shrewd guesses about my nonfiction source material (Paul I. Wellman and Glenn Shirley), and even suggests playing the Eagles' 1973 album Desperado while reading. Right on all counts, Mr. Hicks. I'd love to visit your school library someday and do a workshop for your students.

Sixty-six years ago today

2011-08-06T02:03:00.000-05:00

Today is the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. At left is a photo I made on the day of the 41st anniversary, looking through the canopy of the Memorial Cenotaph to the A-bomb dome in the distance. The dome capped the city's industrial exhibition hall in 1945 and was directly beneath the atomic bomb, which exploded in the air. The dome survived because it had a steel framework and wasn't subjected to lateral blast pressure; other buildings near ground zero were destroyed. People caught outside buildings were vaporized, some leaving only their shadows on sidewalks and stone steps.

ZERO MINUTES update

2011-08-05T00:52:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, so I've been in some rush to add more photos to the companion site to my Kindle book, ZERO MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT. I'm happy to report that my photos of Yoshito Matsushige and other survivors (made in 1986) are now up. For the photo minded among you, the images were made with a Canon F1n on 35mm black-and-white Ilford film, rolled from bulk. The lens (for most of the portraits) was a 135mm 2.8, as I recall. ZERO MINUTES has been doing well since its release, and made the top ten in the bestseller category of Nonfiction... Disaster. If you have a moment, please go to Amazon and check it out (just click on the link above). Don't have a Kindle? You can download a free app that will let you read and manage Kindle books on your Mac or PC. Several people have emailed to ask if ZERO MINUTES will also come out in print, and the answer now is probably not. The digital edition, I feel, is the right format. Also, a print version just could not compete with the 99-cent digital book.

Companion site to ZERO MINUTES

2011-07-31T19:48:00.003-05:00

Next week, Aug. 6, is the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. As a companion site to my Kindle edition of ZERO MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT, I have posted the only known images made in Hiroshima the day the bomb fell. They were made by 32-year-old newspaper photographer Yoshito Matsushige. I met Matsushige in 1986 and he gave me five prints he made from the original negatives, along with his captions in English. Go to the site and click on the thumbnails for high-resolution scans of each of the photos. The detail in three of the photos is heartbreaking. There are also imperfections in the negatives, where the emulsion has run or cracked; lacking a darkroom, Matsushige developed the images in kitchen trays and washed them in a nearby stream.

ZERO MINUTES debuts on Kindle

2011-07-29T14:33:00.001-05:00

My new Kindle ebook, ZERO MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT, which has been available for less than 48 hours, was ranked in the top 25 on two paid Amazon bestseller lists this morning. ZERO MINUTES collects my interviews with the survivors of the atomic bombings in 1986, when I traveled to Japan on a journalism grant, and adds new material as well.

Here's the book description:

Forty-one years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, award-winning journalist Max McCoy traveled to Japan to interview and photograph the survivors. "Zero Minutes to Midnight" is the result, a nonfiction narrative in eight parts which gives voice to those who witnessed nuclear apocalypse.

In Japanese, the survivors are called hibakusha -- literally, "those who received the bomb." Featured is the story of Yoshito Matsushige, the newspaper photographer who shot the only images of Hiroshima the day the bomb fell. A special section includes some of those historic photos, as well as black-and-white portraits of the survivors made by McCoy in 1986.

In a new introduction, the author recalls the effect of that trip on his own life, and in the afterword--written in the wake of Japan's March 2011 earthquake and nuclear meltdown--he reminds us that apocalypse is always only a minute away. "Zero Minutes to Midnight" is long enough to present a compelling and historic portrait of the hibakusha, but short enough to read in a single sitting.

Did I mention it's only 99 cents?

RIDER on Kindle

2011-07-17T15:05:00.002-05:00

A pair of 2011 Spurs

2011-07-02T01:03:00.001-05:00

Here I am with my friend Red Shuttleworth, rounder and poet, immediately following the awards banquet at the Western Writers of America Convention last Saturday, June 25, at Bismarck, North Dakota. Red won the poetry award and I won the mass market fiction award for Damnation Road. Actually, the award I'm holding isn't really my award, but the Spur for the writers of the HBO film Temple Grandin. There was some snafu with my award reaching Bismarck, so the HBO award was used as a placeholder for my presentation. The photo is used courtesy Johnny D. Boggs.

Deliver us

2011-06-21T23:57:00.001-05:00

Walking around Bismarck this afternoon I spotted this statue in the courtyard of St. Mary's at Eighth and Broadway. A Marian figure, obviously. Nicely done. But what intrigued me was what lurked beneath Mary's right foot.Yes, I know it's supposed to represent a victory over evil. But the serpent doesn't seem quite contained... but perhaps I'm just reacting to the historic floods here, the twisters back home, the economy, the Japan nuclear crisis, a fall down the stairs. I'm in North Dakota for the annual Western Writers of America convention, and took advantage of a break in the rain to explore a bit. Surprising what you find.

Father's Day special

2011-05-11T12:14:00.001-05:00

From now until Father's Day, June 20, THE SIXTH RIDER Kindle edition will be on sale for $2.99. That's a savings of nearly 40 percent off the regular price of $4.77 for this book, which won the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America for Best First Novel.

Gold prospecting adventure

2011-04-18T20:05:00.059-05:00

With gold topping $1,500 an ounce for the first time in history today, it seems a good time to post some photos from my gold prospecting adventure on the Llano River in the hill country of central Texas. My friend W.C. Jameson introduced me to gold prospector Earl Theiss, who graciously brought out his equipment to let me do some hands-on dredging. After briefing me on what to expect -- rocks either slick with moss or as harsh as sandpaper, water typically between three and five feet but with some holes over your head, and being prepared for a physically and mentally adventure -- he turned me loose. The dredge is sort of like a souped-up vacuum cleaner that Hoovers material from the bottom of the river into a 4-inch nozzle and spits out out into a floating sluice box. Air was supplied by a hookah rig on the dredge (I supplied my own wet suit, mask, gloves, and dive experience -- this is scuba diving, so if you'd like to try it, you'd better be certified). After gathering material for a couple of hours from the beautiful pink granite bottom of the river, and paying particular attention to cracks and crevices, as Earl instructed, we were ready to see what we got. That's Earl (left) and me transferring the stuff we collected in the sluice on the dredge into a bucket to further refine and, eventually, to pan. We were at a place called Long's Fishing Camp, north of Kingsland, and it was a beautiful spring day. Eighty degree weather. Back in Kansas, it was snowing.

Llano gold!

2011-04-18T20:02:00.029-05:00

The end result of a half-day diving, dredging, and panning the Llano River. Not enough to retire on, but not bad for a few hours of fun. Thanks, Earl!

We ate lunch at Cooper's Barbecue in Llano -- and it was the very best barbecue I've ever had, and just as good as I remember it when W.C. and Fred Bean took me there some 15 years ago.

I'll be returning to central Texas on Sept. 24 and 25, 2011, to sign books at the Llano River Outdoor Expo. There will be a gold panning and metal detecting competitions and much more. And if you're interested in more about gold prospecting, geology, the history of the Llano area in general, and the local gold prospecting club, check out llanogold.

Signing at Guthrie May 7

2011-04-12T15:20:00.001-05:00

The Guthrie Public Library is hosting a DAMNATION ROAD book signing from noon to 1 p.m. Saturday, May 7. The novel -- which has won a 2011 Spur Award form the Western Writers of America -- is largely set in Guthrie, Oklahoma Territory, at the close of the 19th Century. The library is at 201 North Division Street.

DAMNATION ROAD wins Spur Award

2011-03-28T13:59:00.000-06:00

Max McCoy has won a 2011 Spur Award from the Western Writers of America for his novel, Damnation Road. Set in Oklahoma Territory at the turn of the last century, the book continues the story of irascible outlaw Jacob Gamble, who is now nearing fifty and confronted by a new west of telephones, smokeless powder and moving pictures. Damnation Road, which was named the best mass market original novel by the WWA, was published in September by Kensington, New York. It is the final novel in McCoy’s western noir trilogy. The first book, Hellfire Canyon, which introduced Jacob Gamble at age 13 during the Civil War, also won a Spur and was named a 2008 Kansas Notable Book by the state library.

This year’s awards were announced Monday by the Western Writers of America. Other winners include True Grit, a film by Joel and Ethan Coen, for best drama, and The Killing of Crazy Horse by Thomas Powers, for best historical nonfiction. The awards will be presented at WWA’s annual convention June 21-25 at Bismarck, N.D.

The Spur Awards, given annually for distinguished writing about the American West, are among the oldest and most prestigious in American literature. In 1953, when the awards were established by WWA, western fiction was a staple of American publishing. At the time awards were given to the best western novel, best historical novel, best juvenile, and best short story. Since then the awards have been broadened to include other types of writing about the West. Today, Spurs are offered for the best western novel (short novel), best novel of the west (long novel), best original paperback novel, best short story, best short nonfiction. Also, best contemporary nonfiction, best biography, best history, best juvenile fiction and nonfiction, best TV or motion picture drama, best TV or motion picture documentary, and best first novel (called The Medicine Pipe Bearer's Award). Winners of the Spur Awards in previous years include Larry McMurtry for Lonesome Dove, Michael Blake for Dances With Wolves, Glendon Swarthout for The Shootist, and Tony Hillerman for Skinwalker.

Sunshine

2011-03-20T15:33:00.004-06:00

Last week was Sunshine Week. It is especially fitting that on Friday Judge Maryann Sumi issued a stay of Wisconsin's controversial bill that would limit the collective bargaining rights of most state workers, on the grounds that the lawmakers violated the state's Open Meetings Law.

In her ruling, Sumi said that Wisconsin residents own their government.

"And we own it in three ways," she ruled. "We own it by the vote. We own it by the duty to provide open and public access to records, so that the activities of government can be monitored. And we own it in that we are entitled by law to free and open access to governmental meetings, and especially governmental meetings that lead to the resolution of very highly conflicted and controversial matters.

"That’s our right. And a violation of that right is tantamount to a violation of what is already provided in the Constitution, open doors, open access, and that nothing in this government happens in secret."

Sumi went on to quote the late William A. Bablitch, a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice: "An open meetings law is not necessary to ensure openness in easy and noncontroversial matters where no one really cares whether the meeting is open or not. Like the First Amendment, which exists to protect unfavored speech, the Open Meetings Law exists to ensure open government in controversial matters. The Open Meetings Law functions to ensure that these difficult matters are decided without bias or regard for issues such as race, gender, or economic status, and with highest regard for the interests of the community. This requires, with very few exceptions, that governmental meetings be held in full view of the community.”

A district attorney had brought the Open Meetings complaint, alleging that Republicans did not observe the 24-hour public notice requirement before convening a conference committee. Democratic legislators had fled the state in an attempt to halt passage of the bill. Sumi ruled that the public did not have ample time to attend the meeting.

Walter Zacharius: A man among sharks

2011-03-03T16:02:00.001-06:00

This bit of sad news from our friend Gary Goldstein, senior editor at Kensington Books:

Walter Zacharius, founder and former CEO of Kensington Books, passed away this morning at the age of 89.
Kensington was founded in 1974 by Mr. Zacharius, who previously had been one of the founders of Lancer Books. Walter started Kensington with a little capital and a big dream. In the 36 years that followed—a little fish in a big pond (and one filled with sharks)--Walter defied all the odds and built Kensington into a major publisher with a number of current and past NY Times and USA TODAY bestselling authors, among them Fern Michaels, Lisa Jackson, William W. Johnstone, and many others. He also discovered a good number of authors who would go on to have careers at many of the major publishing houses, including Simon & Schuster and Random House. Kensington currently has close to 100 full time employees and publishes and distributes more than 400 titles a year in mass market, trade paperback, and hardcover.

But it was the western that was, and continues to be, a big part of Kensington’s success. From Zane Grey to Ernest Haycox to Johnny D. Boggs and Max McCoy, Kensington did ‘em all. And when conventional wisdom said that the western was all but dead as a category, Walter reacted as he always did—he charged head-first into the category and filled the void left by the other publishers. With great success. Till the end, Walter was a huge supporter of the western and of the WWA. When Richard Wheeler won the Spur Award for Vengeance Valley in 2005—Kensington’s first such honor in more than three decades of publishing Walter was so proud that he displayed the publisher’s plaque on his office wall right next to a picture of his grandchildren.

The plaque is still there.

Walter Zacharius was the last of a breed—a maverick independent in an industry now run by corporate wonks.

Sixth Rider featured in Kindle Reader Blog

2011-02-27T18:56:00.000-06:00

The Sixth Rider 20th Anniversary Edition (a Kindle ebook) has been featured in Jan Zlenditch's Kindle Reader Blog. I'm in good company, because she also mentions Elmer Kelton in the same post (and Joyce Carol Oates elsewhere). Here's the link.

"These long-tailed heroes of the revolver"

2011-02-26T15:52:00.002-06:00

Deadly Dozen: Forgotten Gunfighters of the Old West, Vol. 3
By Robert K. DeArment (University of Oklahoma Press, 2010) Hardcover, 396 pp.

Robert K. DeArment has given us a third volume in his meticulously researched series on “forgotten” gunfighters of the old west, although some of his subjects – Charley Harrison and Ed Short, to name two – will be familiar to western history buffs. Others, such as Jewish gunman Jim Levy and the maniacal Hill Loftis, will offer new and wicked delights.

A foreword by historian Roger McGrath explains that DeArment himself has some experience with handling a gun, as a soldier during World War II. “He understands that there is nothing more dramatic than a man fighting for his life and nothing more courageous than a man hearing the snap and crack of bullets about his head yet cooly and deliberately returning fire.” This may help explain why DeArment isn’t given to the hyperbole and hero worship that has infected other nonfiction writers on the same subject. What we get from DeArment is the unadulterated truth, culled from an exhaustive sifting of the historical account, and presented in a logical and straightforward manner. With each of the dozen subjects, we get a brief family history (often, the second paragraph recounts their birth) followed by a detailed account of their gunfights and their immediate or eventual deaths. Of the dozen subjects, most met violent ends. Six died in gunfights, two were dead by suicide, and one was lynched by a mob. Only two died of natural causes, and the fate of another is uncertain.

In setting the scene for an early Nevada pistoleer named Farmer Peel, DeArment gives us a bit of Mark Twain in describing how gunmen were regarded in the silver camps: “The desperado stalked the streets with a swagger graded according to the number of homicides, and a nod of recognition from him was sufficient to make a humble admirer happy for the rest of the day… When he moved along the sidewalk in his excessively long frock-coat, shiny stump-toed boots, and with dainty little slouch hat tipped over left eye, the small fry of roughs made room for his majesty,” Twain recalled in Roughing It. “The best known names in the Territory of Nevada were those belonging to these long-tailed heroes of the revolver.”

Farmer Peel (who was given the nickname by his peers because he looked nothing like a farmer) died on in Montana in 1867, during a gunfight with gambling rival John Bull. Peel was walking arm-in-arm with his mistress when, according to one account, they were confronted by Bull with pistol drawn and murderous intent. But Peel could not jerk his gun hand loose from the frightened woman’s grasp quick enough to defend himself, and Bull ended the dispute with three bullets – the last fired into Peel’s head at point-blank range.

In recounting the life of gambler Charley Harrison, DeArment does a good job of portraying the rip-roaring days of early Denver and Harrison’s death, as a Confederate officer, after a running fight with a band of Osage on the Verdigris River in southeast Kansas. As for lawman Ed Short, the author gives us a sober account of his killing in a toe-to-toe shootout in a Rock Island mail car with a member of the Dalton Gang. But DeArment truly shines when he recounts the life of Jim Levy, the only known Jewish gunman in the west.

Levy, a professional gambler, gained fame for his drunken and deadly shooting matches in gambling halls from Deadwood to Tombstone. After an argument with a fellow sharp in Tucson, Levy – who was flat-broke and perhaps mentally unstable – agreed to end the quarrel with a duel across the border into Mexico, and a hat was passed to raise thirty dollars to pay for a wagon to convey the combatants and their entourages. But the law got wind of the fight and spoiled the fun. But that wasn’t the end of it; the other fighter and two of his friend ambushed Levy when he emerged from a Tucson hotel. Levy fell dead on the sidewalk, and a newspaper reporter on the scene claimed he was unarmed. Levy was forty, rather old for his line of work.

But the story of Hill Loftis is perhaps the most disturbing of DeArment’s dozen.

Loftis – who also went by the aliases Tom Ross and Charles Gannon – had a rap sheet that ran from the Old West to the eve of the Great Depression. He was part of the Red Buck Waightman Gang that attempted robbery and successfully pistol-whipped the owner at Waggoner’s Store in Oklahoma Territory on Christmas Eve, 1895, and later holed up in a dugout and fought it out in the bitter cold with a posse of lawmen. But Loftis escaped, and remained a fugitive for many years, spending some time in South American but eventually returning to the states. Loftis was apparently easy to spot, having a head shaped like a buffalo’s and chilling black eyes. One Texas Ranger who chased him even believed that perhaps the outlaw’s peculiarly elongated head “caused some pressure on the brain, and might account for his vicious tendencies.” Loftis was convicted of murder in Texas, but later broke prison. He remained on the run until 1929, when during a thirty degree below night in a Montana line camp he killed a range detective by the name of Ralph Hayward who had been sent to smoke him out. After shooting Hayward to death, Loftis ordered the other cowboys out into the cold, burned all personal papers, and wrote a suicide note – then put a pistol to his head and pulled the trigger.

With this volume, with its copious notes and thorough index, DeArment has once again added to the body of Old West scholarship. He has also provided solid entertainment for the casual reader looking for something fresh amid the stale and often-told tales from the outlaw trail.

Snow day

2011-02-03T17:52:00.002-06:00

The university was closed for two and one-half days for snow and bitterly cold temps. Here's a shot of Plumb Hall, where I work. Made the photo yesterday on my way back from the student newspaper. The staff was composing this week's issue (they made deadline, the campus opened this morning, and the paper was delivered this afternoon). As I told the students, there are no snow days for journalists.

Dig this

2011-01-31T16:16:00.000-06:00

Here's a photo of me taken by my journalism student, Kellen Jenkins. Kellen is a senior at Emporia State and is a part-time shooter for the Topeka Capital-Journal and the Emporia Gazette.

Try it, for free

2011-01-29T20:19:00.004-06:00

Had a friend ask me the other day if western readers would actually buy a Kindle book. Aren't these the kinds of things that you find in truck stops and in wire carousels near the checkout in super markets? Well, sure. I've got a copy of CANYON DIABLO on my shelf because I found it for sale at Reeble's Country Mart, not half a block from my door (and that really is kind of cool, because I wrote the book here at home, shipped it off to the publisher in New York, and it came back to my neighborhood supermarket as a finished project). But, I also found multiple copies of my latest book, DAMNATION ROAD, at the Barnes and Noble in Topeka -- a very respectable venue, complete with coffee shop. And, I told him, giving my usual disclaimer, that my books aren't really westerns. I think of them as simply novels, but some fans and critics like to call them western noir, a term I won't disagree with. So, I think the a Kindle books are entirely appropriate for my work. You can get HELLFIRE CANYON, which was named a 2008 Kansas Notable Book and won the Spur Award for best novel, as a Kindle. You can also buy the Spur Award finalist, I, QUANTRILL, for your Kindle. THE SIXTH RIDER 20th ANNIVERSARY EDITION has just been released. If you don't have a Kindle, you can download a free application from Amazon that will let you read the books on your computer. And to make it even more risk free, you can try before you buy -- you can download sample chapters of any of these novels for free, with no obligation to buy.

'Small price to pay for beauty.'

2011-01-23T16:33:00.002-06:00

More nostalgia. The first edition, Doubleday, 1991. I remember what a thrill it was to go into libraries across the country and find the book in card catalogs. Of course, in those days the card catalog was a nice wooden cabinet with actual index cards, with the bibliographic information and call number neatly (or not so neatly) typed. For a writer, it was the purest form of validation. Now, card catalogs are electronic, and you're staring into a computer screen instead of feeling the edge of the cards riffle beneath your fingertips. Progress, I know. Reminds me of a line from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: "What happened to the old bank? It was beautiful."

Mass market Ken Laager cover

2011-01-23T16:30:00.004-06:00

A bit of nostalgia: The cover of the mass market paperback edition of The Sixth Rider, 1994. The illustration is by Ken Laager, a terrifically talented artists who was known at Bantam for his "western fine art look." It is a particularly good cover, I think. Laager is now a gallery painter, and you can see more of his work at www.kenlaager.com. Go to the Illustration section, and take a look at a work called "Quantrill's Raiders," an illustration he did for the cover of my second book.

Sixth Rider Kindle Edition

2011-01-23T15:57:00.005-06:00

The 20th Anniversary Edition of The Sixth Rider is now available on Kindle, with a new cover and an afterword by Johnny D. Boggs. The novel was first published in hardcover by Doubleday and here's the inside jacket copy:

It's late in the last century and the Wild West is becoming tamed by telegraph wire, railroads, and the modern methods of federal lawmen. But the Dalton boys, kin to the infamous Younger and James clans, haven't heard the news. Brought up on romantic tales and songs about outlaws, they aim for glory and gold, following in the bloody footsteps of the legendary gangs of the West.

Samuel Cole Dalton is the youngest of fifteen children sired by a drunk and raised by a Bible-reading Kansas woman whose love can't keep her brood on the straight and narrow. At thirteen, Sam still has a chance at an honest life, but his fate is decided when he witnesses the cold-blooded shooting of his brother, Frank, by the moonshiner William Towerly.

Sam takes off after Towerly, bent on revenge. His only resources are his youth, his fury, and the remarkable shooting skills that are the Dalton inheritance. Tracking Towerly to a mountainside hideout, Sam blows away two bandits, but his real quarry escapes. An Indian girl is chained in the cabin, kidnapped by Towerly, and Sam returns her to her home in the Choctaw Nation.

Sidetracked by his love affair with the girl, it is over a year before Sam, now known as the "Choctaw Kid," meets up with his brothers, Bob, Grat and Emmett. The Dalton Gang goes into business: rustling, robbing, and running from the law. But even as they achieve the renown and riches they craved, Sam can't find the fabled glamour of the outlaw life anywhere. Their last heist is a battle famous in Western history, as legendary as the story of the sixth rider--the Choctaw Kid--who manages to escape the violent fate of the notorious Dalton Gang.

Iconic images

2011-01-20T15:38:00.001-06:00

The Iconic Kansas photo exhibit opened at the new Emporia Arts Center last night, just in time for the state's sesquicentennial on Jan. 29. Sixteen artists are represented, including the work of my friends Phillip Finch and Kara Wolford. That's Kara at left, discussing photography with juror Jim Richardson. Richardson, a native Kansan, is best known for his National Geographic work -- especially his three decades of chronicling Cuba, population 231, in extreme north central Kansas. The Emporia exhibit began in 2007, when the Center for Great Plains Studies launched the Plains Photo Project. Special thanks to Jim Hoy, the director of the Center for Great Plains Studies; Susan Brinkman, the center's assistant director; and the board and staff of the Emporia Arts Council. Liz Shenk, a former student of mine, hung the exhibit, which runs through March 2.

Aermotor detail

2011-01-19T23:02:00.001-06:00

The Aermotor Company, founded in 1888, is a familiar trademark in the west. The company, which is still in business, also produced the Norden bombsight during World War II. The Aermotor plant has moved periodically as the company changed hands, although for many years it was located in Conway, Arkansas. It is now located in San Angelo, Texas. This mill looks as if it tangled with a twister -- and lost.

Quixotic icon

2011-01-19T22:45:00.001-06:00

Adjacent to Longhorn Park is this windmill, a plains icon since the late 19th Century. They were used to pump water and, later, generate electricity before rural electrification. I find windmills like this to be more aesthetically pleasing than the turbine giants now invading the windblown plains.

Longhorn Park

2011-01-18T22:06:00.004-06:00

Here's the mayor of Longhorn Park, population six (there may be more, but that's all I counted). Longhorn Park's display herd is located at the entrance to the Dodge City airport, a mile east of town on U.S. 50. Despite their fierce appearance, longhorns are reputed to be gentle in disposition and can even be ridden like a horse. Longhorns were common in the west until the 1880s, when they began to be replaced with other breeds, particularly Herefords.

Twenty Years After

2011-01-07T01:41:00.003-06:00

Here's a preview of the 20th Anniversary Edition of THE SIXTH RIDER, which will be released soon. This new edition will contain every word of the original Doubleday hardcover, plus new material written especially for the anniversary. This book, which is set against the 1892 raid on Coffeyville's banks by the Dalton Gang, was named Best First Novel by the Western Writers of America. Don't want to give away too much yet... but I'll post more details as they become available.

"Gambler's Ghost" featured on Coast to Coast

2011-01-06T15:42:00.002-06:00

The"Gambler's Ghost" photo has been featured on the Coast to Coast AM website -- and I've been swamped with emails from interested people across the country. Most of them just want to know more about the photo, but a few are sharing their own ghost photos. A dedicated paranormal investigator of Civil War battlefields has said that he believes there has been a rise in capturing ghosts in windows and other glass using digital cameras, owing to the phsyics involved. Maybe. I've been a confirmed ghost photo skeptic up to this point -- I suspected that most of them were faked or, like orbs, were easily explained by dust particles reflecting the on-camera flash back into the lense. But, I took this one, know it wasn't tampered with, and have no explanation. I've even shared it with a scientist friend of mine, who shared it with some of his firends and colleagues, and they were stumped as well. I've enjoyed chatting with my email friends about this. And hey, some of them might even become fans of my books.

Saratoga Saloon

2011-01-05T17:29:00.001-06:00

The Saratoga Saloon (the location of the Gambler's Ghost photo, previous post) was owned in part by Dodge City Sheriff Chalk Beeson and offered billiards, keno, faro, and poker. It is Location 13 on the Boot Hill Museum self-guided brochure. Beeson, a legendary lawman, also owned a part interest in the more famous Long Branch Saloon.

Gambler's Ghost

2011-01-05T16:31:00.003-06:00

I've debated about whether to post this photo or not, but it is so damned weird that I've finally given it. I made this photo on the afternoon of Wednesday, Dec. 29, through a pane of glass in the Saratoga Saloon exhibit at Dodge City's Front Street. I was focusing on the gambling apparatus (faro, keno and chuck-a-luck) on the table in the foreground. This isn't a great photo, and wasn't meant to be anything other than a research pix, the visual equivalent of scribbling some notes. But, it is unusual in that you can see me holding the camera in the mirror in the upper left, and see that nothing is behind me to cast the ghostly reflection. Also, I was in Dodge City -- and toured the Boot Hill and Front Street exhibits -- to gather research for a proposal for paranormal series set in the old west (a Victorian medium and a bounty hunter teamed up... "Wylde's West," maybe). And just before I took the photo, I thought there was someone in the room with me, and actually turned and looked over my shoulder. What is especially ironic is that every fall semester, I challenge my photojournalism students to come up with a (faked) ghost photo for me to debunk. I tell them there's never been a convincing photo of a ghost, and that if they actually capture one (in a photo I can't explain away), they get an A. I'm sure this photo is just a trick of light, shadow, and reflection, but still... it is strange. The photo has not been altered or enhanced in any way. The technical info: Canon EOS 10D, 19mm lens, 1/30th second, f 3.5, ISO 800. Life -- and death -- are strange!

Somewhat larger than Wyatt

2011-01-04T22:57:00.004-06:00

A detail of the Wyatt Earp statue by Oklahoma artist Mary Spurgeon, who began sculpting at the age of 72. Spurgeon grew up near Dodge City and spent most of her life painting. Now in her nineties, Spurgeon lives on a ranch near Gate, Oklahoma, a hundred miles due south of Dodge. The statue, placed in 2004, is near Central and Wyatt Earp Boulevard and wields the long-barreled (and perhaps apochryhal) "Buntline Special" Colt. At eight feet, the statue is somewhat larger than the real Wyatt Earp.

More Boot Hill

2011-01-04T01:12:00.005-06:00

There were other Boot Hills in the west -- most notably in Tombstone and Deadwood -- but Dodge City's has a building on site with interpretive displays about the plains tribes, the cowboys, the pioneers, the soldiers, the lawmen, and even Hollywood's influence on Dodge City. Absent, however, is any portrayal of Mexican culture. This is odd, considering the current population is about 40 percent Hispanic, and that when the Santa Fe Trail was blazed in 1822, it quickly became the primary trade route with Mexico. The only mention of Hispanic culture in a self-guided tour brochure available at the visitor's bureau is this entry, for the area that housed migrant railway workers: "The Mexican Village was a small shanty town on the southeast corner of Dodge City in the early 1900s... now buried underneath streets, warehouses and scrap metal."

Boot Hill

2011-01-03T23:00:00.001-06:00

There's nobody left in Boot Hill at Dodge City, but it remains the most famous cemetery in the American west. Located on a hill overlooking Front Street, and never intended as an official cemetery, this patch of ground was the final abode for drifters, prostitutes, anonymous buffalo hunters found frozen on the plains, and a few who met bloody ends in Dodge City's saloons. About sixty individuals were buried here before the gravyard was moved in 1879 to a new cemetery northeast of town. "No one famous was ever buried here," notes the Boot Hill Museum Guide. For the admission price of ten bucks (10 percent discount in the off season), you can see Boot Hill and the recreated Front Street.

Front Street

2011-01-01T17:08:00.003-06:00

Here's Front Street in Dodge City, looking down from Boot Hill. There were actually two Front Streets, one north of the tracks and another south. The tracks were the "deadline," and no guns were allowed north of the line. South of the line, however, anything went -- and often did. Popular interest in Dodge City's past can primarily be attributed to Hollywood, for the 1939 film starring Errol Flynn and the long-running "Gunsmoke" series on television. This (North) Front Street was recreated in 1958, using property records and old photographs. it might have been interesting, however, had they recreated South Front Street instead. Known as the "wickedest little town in America," Dodge City was fueled by the cattle and buffalo trade and roared from 1872 to 1880. The river of legal alcohol stopped when Kansas went dry in 1881; a few years later, the cattle also had stopped coming, the railhead having moved on. The buffalo were close to extinction by that time as well.

Sundial for New Year's Eve

2010-12-31T14:57:00.004-06:00

Let's make the last post of the year about the impressive Mountain Time sundial at the historic Dodge City depot, which signaled railway passengers in years past that they had crossed the 100th Meridian and were officially in the West. There's an identical sundial, a Central Time one, a few yards to the east (although the meridian doesn't run between the sundials -- that line is about a mile to the east, between avenues L and M). Travel Note: Dodge City is on Central Time. Mountain now begins a bit farther west, in Hamilton County.

Best coffee in Dodge

2010-12-31T14:18:00.003-06:00

For me, coffee is as essential to a research trip as a notebook and camera. Here's where I found the best coffee in Dodge City -- Cup of Jo-nes at about Ninth Street and Wyatt Earp Boulevard. The blueberry muffin was also good, and served with fruit on the side. The interior was warm and comfortable after braving the ceaseless wind (photographing) out on the Santa Fe Trail. For eats, the best was Casey's Cowtown Club, a traditional steakhouse at 503 E. Trail (that's south of the tracks and beyond the deadline, for you Dodge City buffs). Sorry, no photo of Casey's, but the steaks and hamburgers were terrific and there's an odd and interesting mix of western art on the walls to browse while awaiting your food. The prices are unbelievably reasonable as well --- the $19 ribeye I had would have been two or three times that price in a major city, and without the home-baked bread and green beans. I have to confess, however, that I was warmly inclined to Casey's when, upon entering, the owner shook my hand and asked where I was from. And no, I didn't tell either Cup of Jo-nes or Casey's that I was, ahem, a writer. The worst food in Dodge City? Perhaps I shouldn't... Oh, what the hell. It was The Inn Pancake House, which served a tired and over-priced breakfast buffet. Curiously, had a hard time finding local places to eat in Dodge City, despite having traversed much of the town. Oh, there were lots of chain restaurants -- including an Applebee's infringing on Front Street, shudder -- but few authentic establishments. Where, I wonder, do the pheasant hunters eat breakfast?

And the trail itself

2010-12-30T21:31:00.001-06:00

The Santa Fe Trail runs to the upper right.The trail was 1,200 miles and was essentially the path the railroad would later take. This is the longest identifiable section of the trail remaining and has been designated a National Historic Landmark. This photo was taken on Wednesday, and while the temperature was unseasonably mild, the wind was fierce.

More trail...

2010-12-30T21:03:00.000-06:00

Here's the sign from the photo below. Caravans traveled with wagons four abreast, cutting a wide swatch in the prairie for 60 years. "Look for long, wide depressions, different vegetation, and water courses running at odd angles at places were 'bridges' in the path span ruts," the sign advises. "They are easiest to see when the sun is low."

Santa Fe Trail

2010-12-30T20:54:00.000-06:00

About 11 miles west of Dodge City along U.S. 400, there's one of the best remaining places to view the ruts of the old Santa Fe Trail. There's a parking area and a path across the prairie to an observation point where you can plainly see the ruts as they go ever westward. The trail, established in 1822, ran from Franklin in central Missouri to Santa Fe in what was then Mexico. Near this spot is where the trail forked. The Mountain route, cutting across the edge of what is now Colorado, was the safer route. The Cimarron Cutoff, which took off to the southwest across the sand hills of the Oklahoma panhandle, was faster -- but risky, since there was precious little water.

Signing Nov. 13

2010-10-13T15:58:00.004-05:00

Award-winning novelist Max McCoy and former FBI agent Mark Bouton will have a signing 11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 13 at the Town Crier in Emporia to celebrate their newest books. Max's latest is called Damnation Road ($5.99 paperback), which is the latest featuring Rough Rider Jacob Gamble. It's another exciting and savage adventure through the American southwest! Mark's latest is How to Spot Lies Like the FBI ($12.95 paperback), which will teach you how to read body language, facial expression and other tell-tale "tics" that people exhibit when they're lying. Join us from 11 a.m. to 1 pm. and visit with the authors and have your copies signed! And as always, if you can't make it, just give us a call and we'll get books signed for you! -- Thanks to Town Crier, 716 Commercial St., Emporia, Kansas.

Boggs at Ozark Writers

2010-10-13T15:50:00.001-05:00

Johnny Boggs was a keynote speaker at the 42nd annual Ozark Creative Writers conference last weekend at Eureka Springs, Arkansas. We walked from the convention center on Saturday downtown for lunch and back, and at one point I asked Boggs to pose for a photo. Here's the result. Boggs is a four-time Spur winner, the immediate past president of Western Writers of America, and a Wrangler Award winner. He's also a wine snob, I discovered. But he did a great job at the conference, of course. A few years back, I dedicated a book to him, but called him "the bastard Johnny Boggs" as, well, a joke on how nice he is. He told me the dedication cost me a sale -- to his mother.

DAMNATION ROAD

2010-08-25T21:03:00.007-05:00

The outlaw Jacob Gamble is back in DAMNATION ROAD. The official release date from Pinnacle is Sept. 7. This is the third and final book of the trilogy that began with the Spur-award winning HELLFIRE CANYON. The year is 1898 and the location is Guthrie, Oklahoma Territory, and points beyond -- geographically, morally, and spiritually. Like the other Jacob Gamble adventures, this isn't your typical genre western. Consider yourself warned.

The $46 man

2010-03-03T21:31:00.004-06:00

One of Doolin's neighbors in Summit View is a lesser outlaw by the name of Elmer McCurdy, killed in a gunfight with lawmen after a train robbery in the Osage Hills on Oct. 7, 1911. McCurdy's body wasn't buried for another 65 years, however -- his corpse was mummified and spent decades touring the country in carnivals and spookhouses. It was finally identified as human remains at an amusement park in Long Beach, California, in 1976, during the filming of an episode of "The Six Million Dollar Man," and returned to Guthrie for burial. Oh, and what did McCurdy get during that 1911 train robbery? Forty-six dollars and some liquor.

Dead like Doolin

2010-03-03T20:59:00.004-06:00

Bill Doolin, Outlaw O.T. (Oklahoma Territory), was killed by a posse led by Heck Thomas near Lawson on Aug. 25, 1896, after escaping from the federal jail at Guthrie a few weeks earlier. Accounts differ as to who fired the fatal shot, but all agree that Doolin was hit with a fatal blast of buckshot from an eight-gauge shotgun. The results were documented by the local photographer, as was the fashion, and for a quarter you could buy a postcard of Doolin in death -- with the proceeds ostensibly going to his widow, Edith, for burial expenses (although none of the money collected went for that purpose). Doolin was buried in Summit View Cemetery at Guthrie, and his grave marked with a bent buggy axle.

Today, Doolin's grave is marked with an impressive red tombstone that is about as tall as I am (see left), in an area marked with a cheesy "Boot Hill" sign in Summit View. By all accounts, Doolin was among the most likeable of western outlaws, and claimed to have never killed anybody during any of his many robberies, at least not on purpose.

Territorial prison gallery

2009-12-29T22:03:00.011-06:00

Here's the front of the old territorial prison at Guthrie, on the northeast corner of Second and Noble. This was the place that Bill Doolin escaped from in 1896 -- and which plays a central role in my new novel, DAMNATION ROAD. Underneath that pink stucco, which was added after the local Methodists bought the building for a church in 1924, is native red sandstone. About where you see the window in this photo was the main entrance to the jail, an iron cage attached to the outside of the building that was reached by a flight of steep iron steps. In some of the literature, you see this referred to as the "black jail" of Guthrie, but that was an earlier county jail, which was built from black strap iron. After the Methodists purchased the building, they added the stucco, a peaked roof, and a church-like addition on the east end to make it appear less like a fortress. After it was abandoned by the Methodists, it was home to the Samaritan Foundation, a religious cult, until 1995. The building has been declared unsafe and is closed to the public, although there is an restoration movement planned, according to a sign on the corner of the building. The jail, as you might expect, is reported to be haunted.

Wide shot
Here's a shot of the entire building. The old entrance is on the left (west) side of this photo, facing west. The original prison building did not have a green peaked roof, nor did it have the church-like addition on the east side.

Original building

Here's what the territorial jail originally looked like in the 1890s, from a photo in the Oklahoma Historical Society Archives. Look closely and you can see the steps leading up to the iron cage and main entrance on the second floor.

One last shot

Here's a tiny barred window that is on the ground floor of the prison, visible on the old photo just above the bottom of the steps. This was a special cell sometimes used for female prisoners, usually prostitutes, if I'm reading my sources correctly.

Did I encounter any ghosts while visiting the old territorial prison? Well, no. But there was a decidedly weird and malevolent vibe to the place -- but maybe that's just because I knew a little history. Oh, and what happened to Bill Doolin, the famous Oklahoma Territory outlaw who famously broke out in 1896? I'll save that story for my next post...

Holiday shooter

2009-12-11T23:00:00.010-06:00

Here's something that made me smile, even though I hate this time of year (I know, I know, call me Scrooge). It's a holiday self-portrait from T. Rob Brown, my friend and former colleague at The Joplin Globe. I worked with Brown for many years at the Globe, and he often accompanied me on several investigative pieces. He was named AP Photographer of the Year for 2009. The holiday greeting wasn't taken with a fisheye, by the way -- it's his reflection in a Christmas ornament.

All in the lead

2009-12-09T12:26:00.001-06:00

This, from CNN today: "President Obama -- fighting wars in two countries -- will arrive in Norway on Thursday to accept the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009."

Time, Date, Twitter

2009-11-11T17:44:00.003-06:00

As if journalism students didn't have enough trouble already, there's a fake AP Stylebook on Twitter. But at least some of the 140-character entries are amusing. Consider this: The numbers one through ten should be spelled out while numbers greater than ten are products of the Illuminati and should be avoided.

Pedestrian Comics

2009-10-27T20:32:00.008-06:00

I seem to be blogging a lot, probably to keep from writing. Well, here's something I've been meaning to post for a while now -- Pedestrian Comics by Dan Spees. It's an autobiographical take on his life teaching community college at Hutchinson, Kansas. I particularly like the panels where he is sent to teach composition at a local Catholic school.

A Remarkable Ego

2009-10-26T10:15:00.010-06:00

Here's a book review I did for the Spring 2009 issue of The Great Plains Newsletter. This post is way too long, according to the blog gurus, but to hell with them. The newsletter isn't available online, so thought I'd offer it here.

A Remarkable Curiosity: Dispatches from a New York City Journalist's 1873 Railroad Trip Across the American West. Edited and compiled by Jerald T. Milanich. Boulder: The UP of Colorado, 2008, 371 pages, with index and illustrations.

Although few have heard of him now, Amos Jay Cummings was once the most popular journalist in the United States. More than a hundred years after his death, dispatches from his 1873 railway journey across the American west have been collected by anthropologist Jerald T. Milanich.

Milanich, curator of archaeology at the Florida Museumof Natural History at Gainesville, became interested in Cummings when he read an unsigned newspaper account of a visit to Turtle Mound, a huge shell heap left by ancient Indians on the Atlantic coast. Intrigued, Malevich found phraseology similar to the Turtle Mound article in an 1875 guidebook to Florida that was authored by “Ziska,” an obvious pseudonym.

After what Malevich describes as a “wild literary adventure,” he confirmed that Ziska was in fact Amos J. Cummings – journalist, Civil War hero, and Congressman.

And, one might add, liar and shameless self-promoter.

Cummings was born in 1838 in a small town near border between Pennsylvania and New York. He claimed to have run away at 15 to become an “itinerant typesetter,” although this is certainly an exaggeration, a stretcher told by Cummings in his later years to make his life seem more romantic. He also claimed to have accompanied William Walker during the 1858 invasion of Nicaragua, but Malevich is rightly suspicious – neither the dates nor the details add up to allow Cummings to have been with Walker during any of his ill-fated attempts to establish a slave-holding Southern empire in Latin America.

During the Civil War, Cummings was a volunteer with a New Jersey infantry regiment, and saw action at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. Thirty years after the war – and following his election to Congress – he received the Medal of Honor for leading a charge to save a Union gun from falling into rebel hands during the battle of Salem Church on May 4, 1863.

Milanich concludes that Cummings was a “bona fide war hero” because about a third of the 35 New Jersey soldiers who were awarded the medal got theirs long after the war, too. But the most complete account of the feat of heroism that saved the cannon appears to have penned by – you guessed it – Cummings himself.

“One thing I soon learned,” Milanich writes in a classic bit of understatement, “was that Cummings and his biographers did not always provide correct or truthful information.”

The stretchers include moving his year of birth to 1841, apparently to make Cummings appear younger. The reason, Milanich, believes, was vanity. After his success as a travel writer sending back anonymous dispatches from wild and wooly Florida, Cummings (who was managing editor of The New York Sun) undertook the six-month railway journey to the west. It was during this journey that he began filing his dispatches under Ziska.

Alas, Milanich never discovered why Cummings chose the odd pseudonym.

“I’ve been trying to figure it out since I first discovered that Ziska was Cummings,” Milanich said in an email message. “Had I been a reasonably literate person in 1873 I probably would know immediately, but.. . .”

While such affected journalistic handles were common during the period, Ziska no longer rings like the pen name of one of his travel writing contemporaries, Mark Twain. His prose pales in comparison as well, which may be much of the reason Cummings is forgotten and Twain is not. To say that his style is dry is like saying that rain is wet.

“The trip by railroad over the plains is monotonous,” Cummings reports from Kansas. “It is generally understood that passengers have not a thing to do during the journey but to gaze at immense buffalo herds and shoot antelopes.

Although it was in the buffalo season, I saw none of the animals.”

Still, there is much historical value in his accounts. The best example may be an interview Cummings did in July 1873 at Salt Lake City with Brigham Young. The 78-year-old patriarch was being sued for divorce and $200,000 by his seventeenth wife, Ann Eliza.

“I had a talk with the Mormon Prophet yesterday,” Cummings begins, and goes on to provide a detailed account of his reception: “I saw the great Religious Chief sitting on a sofa before I entered the room. I recognized him from the pictures that I had seen hanging at the doors of the Salt Lake photograph galleries. He was looking toward the stoop, and evidently expecting me. He kept his eyes fixed upon me as I approached, then he arose, shook hands, politely offered me his seat upon the sofa, and sat down upon a chair at my side.”

A sort of transcript follows, and when Cummings asks about the divorce suit, Young explodes.

“Blackmail! Blackmail! It is not the first time they have attempted to Blackmail the Mormon Church, and I presume it will not be the last. We have never allowed them to blackmail us out of a single cent, and we don’t propose to allow them to do so now.”

A day later, he interviewed Ann Eliza Young. During the long session, he asked the 30-year-old woman why she thought Young had acquired so many wives.

“Well, we (meaning she and the other wives) think it’s vanity. He just wants to show that if he is an old man he can marry young women; and he isn’t the only one in power who does the same thing.”

About a third of the dispatches are devoted to the divorce and other Mormon issues, apparently to feed the growing American fascination with the polygamous desert sect. The remaining articles are mostly sketches of the colorful characters that Cummings met on his curious journey to San Francisco. In one, he describes a winter storm from the point of view of a rancher along Gypsum Creek in central Kansas:

“A night’s ride in a hard norther, fifty vain endeavors to get the cattle turned against the wind, and then daylight. You find you are on the banks of the Arkansas River, and have lost some twenty or thirty animals. You are cold, frost bitten, hungry, and want to sit down and die. That is Kansas winter.”

Before Cummings left San Francisco on Nov. 4, 1873, he wrote the article that would appear in The San Francisco Chronicle announcing his departure. In it, he describes himself as “an accomplished angler as well as a brilliant and vivacious writer.”

While Cummings makes a modern journalist uncomfortable with his megalomania and casual grip on the truth, his contribution to reporting – and to history – is undeniable. Milanich has rightly restored Cummings to public consumption. He plans a follow-up volume, one dealing with Cummings and his connection to Thomas Edison – it was Cummings, through his pieces in The New York Sun, that first brought the inventor to national attention, when Edison was searching for a suitably durable filament during the invention of the light bulb.

Writing Western Noir

2009-10-25T22:38:00.006-06:00

At 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, I'll be speaking at the Alford Branch Library in Wichita. My topic is "Writing Western Noir" and I'll tell the wicked but true story of how I went from Front Page Detective to HELLFIRE CANYON -- and won the Spur and a Kansas Notable Book Award along the way. The program is part of Western Days at the Wichita Public Library system. My colleague Jim Hoy is also doing a presentation on Flint Hills Cowboys Nov. 16 at the Alford branch.

Autumn afternoon

2009-10-25T20:37:00.007-06:00

Just a couple of photos from the Roga Pumpkin Patch west of Emporia. Was out taking advantage (perhaps for the last time this year) of the mild weather and couldn't resist photographing total strangers.

Seven Secrets at KAC

2009-10-12T23:22:00.003-05:00

This Saturday, I'll be the keynote speaker at the Kansas Authors Club annual convention in Topeka.

I'm doing a workshop on The Hero's Journey at 3:30. At 6 p.m., I'm presenting the keynote, "The Seven Secrets of Writing Well." The conference is being held at the Capitol Plaza Hotel and Convention Center, 1717 SW Topeka Blvd.

Other speakers include Kansas Poet Laureat Denise Low; Thomas Fox Averill, who is writer-in-residence at Washburn University; and Mark Bouton, a mystery author and former FBI agent. There's also a flashlight tour of the state capitol on Friday night.

QUANTRILL, again

2009-10-12T12:23:00.010-05:00

Here's a pleasant note I received from Patsy Terrell:

Just wanted to let you know that I read "I, Quantrill" over the last few days and really enjoyed it. I don't think I've ever read a western before, but a good story is a good story. I know you've received numerous accolades for your work, and don't need to hear praise from me, but it was a fun read for me.

Of course, being from Kentucky and having spent a lot of time in the Joplin area and living in Kansas all this time, I could relate to lots of the locations. It was interesting to see a "Terrell" pop up on the same page as Stanford KY, where I spent some time. That was a fun surprise.

I really enjoyed Mary's story - a lovely, poetic twist.

You can find Patsy's blog here.

DIABLO cover

2009-08-25T22:42:00.010-05:00

Here's a glimpse of the cover for CANYON DIABLO, which will be released in February by Kensington. I don't hate it. If you squint just right it could be a scene from the book. That might be a a .36-caliber Manhattan revolver in Jacob Gamble's hand, during a fight in a Tombstone saloon. Also, the third (and last) book of the trilogy is scheduled to appear in September 2010. The title? DAMNATION ROAD.

I, QUANTRILL revisited

2009-07-26T08:32:00.006-05:00

Here's a review from Tome of the Uknown Blogger:

I have previously admitted to a fondness for old western novels written by Louis L’Amour. Although I have read a handful of other authors, I just haven’t found a single writer that could hold my attention. Until now.

I had been looking to sign a certain paperback copy of Louis L’Amour’s “Bad Medicine” out of the bookmobile again in order to write a little piece about it here. I wasn’t having much luck, but week after week I was seeing this book, titled “I, Quantrill." On a whim I signed it out. I’d never heard of Max McCoy before, and was interested to learn he was from Kansas and that he has a penchant for the Ozarks in Missouri and Arkansas.

“I, Quantrill” was an excellent book. Well written with characters who seemed almost to live and breathe, I think, due to the details revealed about them.

Here's the full review. He's forgiven for having never heard of me. Check out the blog -- the UB writes powerfully about losing his wife, Shelley, to cancer. Perhaps that is one reason he connected with the melancholy tone of I, QUANTRILL.

Trickster

2009-07-20T23:38:00.007-05:00

An all-but-tame coyote stole near me while I was unpacking the Jeep in the Mojave. He must have given up hunting long ago in favor of freeloading, because he seemed uninterested in a plump Gambel's Quail nearby.

Dawn

2009-07-20T23:21:00.002-05:00

In the Mojave Desert, about 75 miles southeast of Las Vegas. This photo was taken last week, when the temperature hit 118 degrees in the shade.

Church Rock

2009-07-20T23:15:00.002-05:00

Just returned from a research trip to the Mojave Desert. Along the way stopped at Church Rock, just off Highway 160 in northwestern New Mexico.

Flint Hills Bee

2009-07-07T02:30:00.003-05:00

Took a drive Sunday to Pioneer Bluffs, a mile north of Matfield Green in Chase County. Drove the Jeep up a rocky road to the top of a ridge. Found this bee and milkweed flower. Not usually into shooting flowers, but I couldn't resist. Honey bees were symbols of resurrection and immortality for the Merovingians (which I learned when I read Holy Blood, Holy Grail some 15 years ago). Also, honey bees are not native to North America. The Indians knew European culture was coming when honey bees began to appear.

Back in the saddle

2009-05-18T00:15:00.011-05:00

I'm back. CANYON DIABLO, the sequel to HELLFIRE CANYON, has been delivered. I don't know if it's better than original, but it sure as hell is bigger. It took me twice as long to write it as I thought it would. This one takes Jacob Gamble into Arizona Territory in the 1880s. My editor, Gary Goldstein, helped me scout locations on the way to last year's Western Writers of America convention at Scottsdale.

In other news, I, QUANTRILL has been named a finalist for this year's Spur Award. At least I get a lunch out of it, next month at the Western Writers of America annual convention -- this year it's in Oklahoma City.

Also, here's a review of HELLFIRE CANYON from the Kansas Notable Book Committee:

Alf Bolin was a real person. An article by Vickie Hooper of Forsyth, Missouri, stated, “During the Civil War in Taney and Ozark Counties in southern Missouri, he was the cruelest man alive.” So when I picked up a copy of Hellfire Canyon by Max McCoy, I expected to read a bloody account of Alf’s escapades.

Instead, I was surprised by the touching tale of a young boy who endured sights, sounds and events that no child should ever have to experience. The book brings back familiar memories of Little Big Man telling his story.

The author, Max McCoy, begins the telling of one viewpoint of Alf’s tale by having the young boy who could have been Alf’s victim speak for himself to a reporter in a fairly modern-day bar. Alf becomes Jacob Gamble’s mentor. Jacob is a 12-year-old fiddle player who finds himself needing a “protector” and Alf fits the bill. He learns from the “expert” when it comes to cruel acts. Yet, Jacob maintains some of the tender heart he glimpsed occasionally from his Mother.

Do not misunderstand me. There is violence and it is bloody, but the story would not be as moving — you would really not to be able to feel what Jacob felt without the horror of Alf’s actions and his overall meanness.

Hellfire Canyon has now been awarded the Spur Award. As an avid reader who doesn’t usually read Westerns, I almost missed this one. Don’t let the paperback cover fool you; this is not just another cowboy story.

See you next year

2008-12-22T12:03:00.002-06:00

I'm taking a hiatus from blogging while a write the sequel to HELLFIRE CANYON. It's been a month since my last post anyway, so I might as well make it official. Don't know exactly when I'll resume blogging, but expect news posts sometime in February. I thought about blogging about the process of writing the book, and I might do that some day, but not now -- there are just too many things to get done.

Moon Pool unabridged audio book

2008-11-23T20:54:00.007-06:00

It was a week for surprises.

THE MOON POOL, my 2004 thriller from Leisure, has just been released as an 11-hour unabridged book on tape by Books In Motion. I know, because it's on their website under "Just in."

So, for $57.95 you can buy the CD Library Package. Or, you can rent it for $9.95 or own it as an MP3 download for $14.95. Also, I can't resist the urge to point out that you could have owned the original paperback for seven bucks. But then, you wouldn't be able to listen to it in the car, would you?

As I've lamented before, the author is always the last to know. Seems like some money should have shown up at my door in connection with this. Guess I'll make some calls.

At least the cover is cool.

What the hell?

2008-11-18T10:52:00.003-06:00

Received the following email today from reviewer Nick Pelling about James Rollins' The Voynich Project. Had to read it three times. Pelling writes:

Here's the relevant part of my review:-

Rollins has clearly taken the time to read up on the VMs and to engage with its strange pictures, for which I applaud him (I even get a brief mention in the notes at the end, which is nice, however unwarranted). Unfortunately, one thing manages to spoil the whole party.

Briefly, what happens is: hero goes to the British Museum/Library to meet man studying the alchemical side of the Voynich Manuscript; because the man has disappeared, the hero instead meets his sister (who also happens to work there); they go to a pub in the East End; hero learns about the womans mysterious Celtic tattoo on her back; Nazi thugs enter the pub; she produces a key from above the back door; they escape out to the rear into a messy gunfight& and when the woman is eventually captured by the Nazis, her tattoo turns out to contain an ancient map / key to the secrets hidden in the Voynich Manuscript.

The problem is that this central storyline exactly reprises probably the best-selling (and quite possibly the best-written) Voynich novel yet, Max McCoy's (1995) Indiana Jones and the Philosopher's Stone - you know, the one I recommend that all aspiring Voynich novelists should read first. If there had been just a handful of similarities, I could possibly have passed over them in silence - but this is all much too much for me to bear.

http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2008/11/10/review-of-the-voynich-project

Cheers, ....Nick Pelling.... // Cipher Mysteries

Lower Fox Creek School

2008-11-03T00:32:00.007-06:00

Visited the Flint Hills on Saturday and spent some time walking around the Lower Fox Creek School (1882) just off Highway 177 in Chase County.

What the dead know

2008-10-19T15:22:00.007-05:00

Have you ever heard of a photo essay being cited in a presidential race? Well, Colin Powell did it this morning on Meet the Press.

Powell, the former Secretary of State who lost street cred when he stumped for the Bush Doctrine at the UN, said that he was moved by an image in a recent photo essay depicting a mother at the grave of her soldier son. The point, Powell said, is that the son -- who was 20 when he died in service of his country -- was a Muslim, something his party has suggested is unpatriotic.

"I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine," Powell said, referring to the Sept. 29 issue of The New Yorker. "It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave."

The photo essay is by 40-year-old New York photographer Platon (yes, he is professionally known only by his first name). Fifteen years ago, British Vogue named him the best up-and-coming photographer.

"You could see the writing on the headstone," Powell said. "And it gave his awards--Purple Heart, Bronze Star--showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn't have a Christian cross, it didn't have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life. Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourself in this way."

The Texan

2008-10-17T00:19:00.009-05:00

The Ozark Creative Writers' annual conference was last weekend at Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and I had a chance to make a portrait of my friend, Mike Blakely. He's a singer, songwriter, and of course a native Texan.

Extra money is always helpful

2008-10-15T11:34:00.004-05:00

Here's a lead from today's New York Times that I had to read three times.

WASHINGTON — The chief executives of the nine largest banks in the United States trooped into a gilded conference room at the Treasury Department at 3 p.m. Monday. To their astonishment, they were each handed a one-page document that said they agreed to sell shares to the government, then Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said they must sign it before they left.

There was no press at this invitation-only meeting, but Mark Landler and Eric Dash did an admirable job of recreating it from interviews. It was, in short, a $250 billion offer the banks couldn't refuse.

Even as they insisted that they did not need the money, bankers recognized that the extra capital could be helpful if the economy became shakier. Besides, many of these banks’ biggest businesses are tied to the stock and credit markets; the quicker they improve, the better their results.

This is just obscene.

Wake me when it's over

2008-10-08T22:32:00.006-05:00

National Newspaper Week is here. I almost missed it.

The theme this year is "Public Notice: Good Government on Display" and the Newspaper Association Managers (NAM on second reference) have offered a downloadable press kit. The aim of the editorials and cartoons and crossword is that it's important for government to keep running paid legal notices in newspapers because, well, it's oh so much better than the free Internet.

"Why in the world should governmental entities spend taxpayers’ money on public notices when they can post them on the Internet for next to nothing?" gushes one canned editorial. "Because the taxpayers have a right to know, have a need to know and want to know, that’s why. The argument is as simple as that."

Not sure I can get worked up about a campaign aimed at convincing local governments keep buying ad space for legals. I'd be more enthused if NAM didn't have such a clear profit motive. The key to better government isn't more advertising, it's investing money on watchdog reporting.

Speaking of which, National Sunshine Week is March 15-21. Now, there's a week to get excited about.

Financial felo-de-se

2008-10-03T17:36:00.006-05:00

By now you know that Congress has caved to fear mongering and passed the bailout, 263-171. We have nationalized $700 billion in bad debt and helped those who have deserved it the least. The bums in the White House have made their last grab on the way out the door, and we've let them get away with it.

At least the Kansas delegation stuck to their guns, if I'm reading the record correctly. Their vote was 3-4 against, just as it was the first time. I understand why Dennis Moore, a Lenexa Democrat, voted for the bailout, but I still disagree.

Meanwhile, 90-year-old Addie Polk, shot herself twice while deputies were attempting to evict her from her home in Akron, Ohio. A neighbor, who climbed in through a window and found the wounded woman, said, "Oh, no. Miss Polk musta done shot herself."

Fannie Mae, which had assumed Polk's $45,620 mortgage from Countryside after she began missing payments, announced today they had forgiven the loan. CNN reports that Addie Polk is recovering in an Ohio hospital.

I wonder if she had health insurance.

Fiefdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-09-29T17:53:00.007-05:00

Had a telephone interview this morning with Paul Simpson, who is writing a piece on my Indy novels for the official Indiana Jones magazine. He's a nice chap (he and the magazine reside in England) and he did me the courtesy not only of reading the Indy books, but also my most recent novel, I, QUANTRILL.

Refreshing.

But, you'd expect this kind of preparation from somebody who wrote The Bond Files: The Unofficial Guide to World's Greatest Secret Agent. Paul asked informed -- and sometimes difficult -- questions. Like, my reaction when I learned that the title for Indy IV was "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." I don't think he'll be able to print my answer, at least not verbatim.

He also asked me what it was like to create the backstories for Belloq and Sallah (that was fun), and which of the novels was my personal favorite (HOLLOW EARTH). He also asked if I meant what I said about passing the hat and whip in the afterword to the last novel.

Yep, I meant it.

Christ, I'm a Republican

2008-09-29T17:36:00.003-05:00

The vote's in, and the $700 billion bailout has been defeated in the House, 228-205.

Republicans voted 2-1 against the bill (although both the GOP and Democrat leadership backed the administration's plan). The Kansas Congressional delegation voted against it by a margin of 3-1. Republicans Jerry Moran and Todd Tiahrt both voted no, along with Dem Nancy Boyda. Dennis Moore, an Overland Park Democrat, was the only Kansan to vote in favor of the bailout.

There must be something seriously wrong with the universe if my thinking not only matches that of most GOP members, but also of the Kansas delegation. The world as we once knew it has truly ended. And faced with a vote of no confidence, Wall Street lost $1.2 trillion in the biggest point drop ever. In terms of percentages, however, the drop didn't even make the top 10, so it's not curtains yet.

Don't be fooled again

2008-09-29T00:23:00.003-05:00

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been drinking the administration's Kool-Aid.

"We sent a message to Wall Street -- the party is over," Pelosi said after an "improved" $700 billion bipartisan bailout agreement was hammered out between House and Senate leaders on Sunday, CNN reported.

Well, no. The message being sent to Wall Street is that no matter how badly you fuck up, the government will always be there for you. All you have to do is to fail big -- the bigger the better, in fact. And have powerful friends.

But if you're a working stiff, forget it. The full force of the government will come down on you like a ton of bricks if you can't pay your taxes, or default on your mortgage, or fall behind on your credit cards because you get sick. The government passed a battery of laws in the last 10 years that made it tougher for those behind the eight ball. They tightened the bankruptcy laws and gave lenders, especially credit card companies, unprecedented power to unilaterally change the terms of your loan.

And don't kid yourself, the splurge won't work.

At no time since the Great Depression has there been such an unequal distribution of wealth. The top 1 percent take 80 percent of the wealth. And while those on the bottom have increased productivity by 20 percent, wages have remained stagnant or lost ground to inflation.

No wonder the average American is outraged and calls to Congress against the bailout have been running 200-1. How, in hell, could Congress then hammer out a deal to pass it in the face of such opposition? Because, once again, the administration has used fear to manipulate the political process. But the bailout won't work. It's a stunt, really, designed to instill confidence and to shield the rich from their own folly.

Allan Sloan, senior editor at large at Fortune Magazine, has this to say:

"The proposed bailout of the world's financial system isn't really about money, folks. It's about psychology. In fact, you can think of it as the most expensive piece of psychotherapy in the history of the world."

Larwrence reprise

2008-09-26T10:56:00.003-05:00

Those quirky free staters will get another shot at me this weekend, when I appear at the second annual River City Reading Festival. At about 10 in the morning, I'll be reading an excerpt from I, QUANTRILL, just in case there are any Lawrence residents who aren't pissed off yet.

The novel, which is a first-person narrative of the final weeks of the notorious guerrilla chieftain William Clarke Quantrill, inflamed the editorial board of the Lawrence Journal-World. Why, they asked a bit snarkily, should they care if Quantrill had a difficult relationship with his mother?

Well, it probably contributed to Quantrill's decision to burn Lawrence to the ground in 1863... But, you have to give the Lawrence paper credit. They are quick to step up and bravely challenge a foe that's been dead for 143 years.

Seriously, I've heard from many Lawrentians who say they get that the book is a work of fiction. They say that anybody who reads the novel realizes that while Quantrill is portrayed as a human being, he isn't a hero.

To form your own opinion, please read the damned book.

Sounds good to me

2008-09-25T21:52:00.011-05:00

My Spur Award- and Kansas Notable Book-award winning novel, HELLFIRE CANYON, will soon be released as an audio book. At least that's the word from my publisher, Kensington.

It's already available as a large-print edition (shown at left). Hate the cover.

Not only no, but hell no!

2008-09-24T22:56:00.007-05:00

In his address to the nation tonight, President Bush said that immediate action was needed, in the form of a $700 billion bailout of mortgage-based securities. "We're in the midst of a serious financial crisis, and the federal government is responding with decisive actions," CNN reported Bush as saying.

But Bush urging quick action on anything is enough to make me think doing nothing is the best course.

More and more, this emergency bailout seems geared to protecting Bush's monied friends rather than saving the economy. It is as if the administration decided to loot the treasury in the weeks they have left, stuffing their pockets with everything they can get. It's the same as waging a largely privatized war so that your friends, the Blackwaters and Halliburtons of the world, can get rich.

This economic crisis was nearly 30 years in building. The people who created it all got rich and will stay rich, what with their multi-billion dollar bonuses and golden parachute deals. I'm thinking, what is worse? Plunging taxpayers another $700 billion in debt? And you know the way the government estimates costs, it could really be a trillion dollars or more. A trillion dollars. This will devalue an already beleaguered dollar, once the international standard for economic stability. And when the dollar slips, rampant inflation will begin. When that happens, Wall Street will take Main Street down with it.

So, let's do nothing and see where we're at when the dust settles. Let the bums take it on the chin. Then, come January, let the new president sort it out. And as much as I admire John McCain for what he endured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, I hope that he's not the people's choice. In an interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday, when asked about the economy, he actually invoked the name of Adam Smith. He didn't mention the unseen hand, but it was implied, almost like code to say, 'Look, I really do have the interests of the rich at heart, you know because I speak your language. Behaving in one's own best interests only makes sense.'"

I wish 60 Minutes would ask Lewis Lapham what he thinks about all this.

Peronslly, I think the current administration has cried wolf too many times for any rational person to take them seriously.

The D word

2008-09-21T23:53:00.007-05:00

Congress is about to buy up $700 billion worth of risky loans in a desperate attempt to avert financial disaster, but it may be too late. Things are bad and are quickly getting worse. This paragraph from today's developing story in the Wall Street Journal is particularly shocking:

Last week, as deep new fissures opened in global financial markets, the U.S. Treasury unveiled a plan to spend up to $700 billion to buy soured mortgages and mortgage-related securities from financial institutions. In many respects, the financial sector last week all but ceased to function.

Consider that last phrase: the financial sector had "all but ceased to function."

Another item, again from the WSJ:

The Federal Reserve agreed to convert Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs into traditional bank holding companies. With the move, Wall Street as it has long been known will cease to exist.

No more investment banks. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs will be holding companies, buying up troubled banks and shielding them from the type of nervous investors who toppled Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, and Merrill Lynch.

The financial sector has ceased to function. Wall Street, in any known form, will cease to exist.

And consider how much $700 billion really is. That's $2,295 in additional debt for every man, woman, and child in the United States. And this is to rescue the financial institutions, not to help the taxpayers who are responsible for paying the bill. This is the socialization of debt on a grand scale. If you are Fanny Mae or Freddy Mac, or AIG or Lehman, your losses are covered by the taxpayers. We have, in effect, nationalized the mortgage industry.

Now, of course, if you are a taxpayer in trouble, don't expect a dime's worth of help from the government. If I fail to make my mortgage payments, the bank will take my house. Nobody in Washington is concerned if my retirement fund loses money (and, in fact, it has). And I'm lucky. What about people who are homeless? What about people without retirement accounts? And what, for God's sake, about the number of people (and many of them working hard for a living) who have no health insurance?

Another WSJ story leads with:

With as few as 72 hours before Congress votes on a federal financial-markets rescue, the financial industry has launched a ferocious effort to shape key provisions, in a fight that could yet stall the bill. Lobbyists and financial-services executives are working deep connections within the administration to ensure as many institutions as possible benefit from a $700 billion federal mechanism to buy distressed assets, then sell them off in better times. In a particularly controversial move, they also oppose proposals by Democrats in Congress to provide mortgage reductions for homeowners facing bankruptcy.

This is outrageous.

The presidential candidates and sitting politicians will rush this week to create a "Newer Deal" promised to stave off financial disaster. Only, they won't be able to do it. This financial collapse is global, and to try to stop it will be like trying to stop a tsunami. And the politicians of both parties have taken lobby money for so long from the very people that have created this nightmare that their knee-jerk reaction will be to protect those familiar monied interests instead of who they really are supposed to work for, the people.

How about socializing health care instead of corporate profits? How about investing in jobs programs instead of passing laws which give the credit card companies more profit and less regulation? How about making sure that all the children in this country have enough to eat instead of letting the CEOs of these negligent corporations bail out with their golden parachutes intact?

We're not supposed to mention the D word -- Depression -- for fear of creating a panic. After all, things can't be that bad. But take a look at the photo above. It is, of course, Migrant Mother, the famous 1936 photo taken by FSA photographer Dorothea Lange. This is what's at stake. Don't panic, but don't go shopping, either.

What the hell is Bob Woodward talking about?

2008-09-21T23:15:00.004-05:00

On Sixty Minutes last week, Bob Woodward (you remember, the guy who with buddy Carl Bernstein broke the Watergate story and inspired a generation of journalists) said the US military had a secret weapon that was akin to the tank or the airplane in the evolution of warfare.

In an interview with Scott Pelley, Woodward said he knew the secret but couldn't reveal it. The surge in Iraq had worked, Woodward said, not because of the increase in troops but because of a new technology that allows the military to locate and kill individual insurgents. He compared this "sophisticated and lethal special operations program" to the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb.

Terrific. What kind of fresh Orwellian hell is this? We know how much safer the atomic bomb the world. And of course we'll only use this wonderful new weapon against the bad guys, right? And nobody else will ever get it, right?

It is unsettling that a journalistic icon would withhold information. He said he was doing it out of a desire to protect lives, that to reveal the information would "get people killed." Okay, maybe. But if so, then probably best not to mention it at all. Unfortunately, it sounds more like he's been drinking the DOD's Kool Aid. I cannot imagine any program, short of the old (and discredited) Star Gate psychic intelligence, which would so dramatically change the face of warfare.

Take it easy

2008-09-19T00:30:00.006-05:00

Long time no blog. Meanwhile, here's another image from the summer road trip. That's my youngest daughter standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona. The chords of "Hotel California" were wafting from a loudspeaker across the street. Have always wanted to see this corner, and I'm glad I did, but can't say it was a religious experience. Seemed a bit tacky. Can't say the Eagles would approve. After gawking a bit, we were back on the road in the Jeep to Santa Rosa, New Mexico, where I strapped on scuba gear and dove the Blue Hole.

Okay, maybe a little sympathy...

2008-09-03T16:24:00.004-05:00

My friend, Red Shuttleworth, is in the wonderful habit of sending me real letters on real paper. The other day he sent me a few lines about I, QUANTRILL.

"You gain sympathy for Quantrill," he says. "Back in playwriting school, there was an exercise called Villian's Worst Deed: the point was to wrtie a sympathetic monologue for someone beyond redemption. Few writers can pull this off. You carried Quantrill into the landscape of the tragic, for he was morally equal to his adversaries... your Quantrill has an equal legitimacy to exist. That took splendid writing."

He also says some nice things about some minor characters, including Blue Fugate and Mary Culhain.

"Great work," Red says. "No straw men or straw ideas. Just straight-ahead great, daring writing."

Praise indeed from Red, who is no slouch when it comes to writing.

His praise includes: Best Living Western Poet -- True West, 2007. 1st Spur Award for Poetry -- Western Writers of America, 2001. "Like Cormac McCarthy..." -- Kirk Robertson, 2000. "Shuttleworth emerges as the true Western hero." --Las Vegas City Life, 2000. "Red Shuttleworth is a phenomenon among literary figures of the American West." -- J.V. Brummels, 1997. Red Shuttleworth is the author of the Spur Award-winning Western Settings and numerous poetry chapbooks, including Backtrack, Brief Lives, and Doc Holliday's Skeleton Takes a St. Patrick's Day Walk, Leadville, Colorado, 1887. Red's plays have been presented at the Utah Shakespearean Festival, Sundance Playwrights Lab, the Sun Valley Festival of New Western Drama, the Churchill Arts Council (Nevada), and at many other professional and academic theatres. Red's poems have appeared in over 200 journals, including South Dakota Review, New Letters, Ontario Review, Blue Mesa Review, True West, Concho River Review, Prairie Schooner, Rattle, Flyway, Elysian Fields Quarterly, Aethlon, Hubbub, and Suisun Valley Review.

By the way, Lawrence residents will have a chance to take another shot at me at the River City Reading Festival on Sept. 27.

Sympathy for the devil?

2008-09-03T14:23:00.013-05:00

The Lawrence Journal-World has denounced my novel, I, QUANTRILL. The subhead was, Why should we care whether William Quantrill had an unpleasant relationship with his mother?

"It is difficult to believe we need a book purporting to show the 'human side' of William Quantrill, who led the devastating 1863 raid on Lawrence," the Journal-World said in an editorial. "Who really cares, except perhaps devotees of the Confederacy, who still are inclined to consider this murderer a hero."

I'm flattered, of course. Despite the claims that nobody cares, the Journal-World did devote a rather lengthy article and an editorial full of righteous bluster to my novel. But my goal was not to create sympathy for the devil.

But if the Journal-World editorial board had actually read my damned book, they would have known that already. The novel is not an apologetic. It is intended as a bloody and gritty and sometimes surreal first-person account of the last weeks of the infamous guerrilla's life. It is, if anything, an indictment of the cycle of violence of which the raid on Lawrence was a part. And it doesn't let Quantrill off the hook -- in the end, paralyzed and waiting for death, he recognizes his culpability, and is damned by it.

"The 244-page book notes that Quantrill died in 1865 in Kentucky after being shot by Union supporters," the editorial continues. "Most of us familiar with the depth and scope of the atrocities committed in that 1863 slaughter are inclined to hope he suffered."

After 145 years, so apparently is Lawrence.

No blood spilled in Lawrence

2008-08-13T01:55:00.006-05:00

Not a shot was fired when I addressed a near-capacity crowd in the auditorium of the Lawrence Public Library last night.

Of course, I really wasn't worried, despite the spirited online discussion on the Lawrence Journal-World website following their story about my attempts to "humanize" William Clarke Quantrill, who burned Lawrence 145 years ago this month. A few posters, apparently angry that I had attempted to portray Quantrill as a human being in my novel rather than a monster, had threatened (anonymously, of course) to teach me a lesson during my visit to Lawrence.

Alas, none showed up. I was all prepared to give my "American Bosnia" lecture about the Civil War on the Border.

Instead, I got an enthusiastic and particularly well-behaved crowd who listened to me talk about my work for over an hour, then asked terrific questions. That was followed by a book signing hosted by The Raven Book Store, a Lawrence institution and a particularly good place to find a mystery novel or works of regional interest. It was a pleasure to meet Lisa and Heidi, the new owners of the shop, and I hope someday in the not-too-distant future I can bring my characters Richard Dahlgren (THE MOON POOL) or Andy Kelsey (HINTERLAND) back in new adventures so I can have signings there.

I have always believed that public libraries are a vital part of the cultural and intellectual life of any community, and I was grateful for such a good turnout in Lawrence. Thanks are particularly due to library liason Maria, who organized the event and made sure the word got out. Terry Rombeck's story in the Journal-World lead the arts section, and was teased above the flag on 1A. The appearance was part of Civil War on the Western Frontier, which goes through Aug. 21, the anniversary of the raid.

I'll be be back in Lawrence on Saturday, Sept. 21, for the River City Reading Festival. A partial list of other authors slated to appear are Thomas Frank, Michael L. Johnson, Candice Millard, Scott Heim, Scott Phillips, Steven Hind, Jim Hoy, Kevin Rabas, and Denise Low.

Another raid on Lawrence

2008-08-12T13:56:00.011-05:00

At 7 p.m., if I'm not assassinated, I'm going to speak and sign books at the Lawrence (Kansas) Public Library. The Lawrence Journal-World ran a story today on my appearance, under the head Devil's Advocate: Emporia author seeks to humanize Quantrill. This story has generated dozens of comments on the Journal-World's site, and a surprising amount of passion, regarding my novel, I, QUANTRILL.

Take this post, for example:

This publicity-seeker's 15 minutes of fame isn't going to change (W.E. Connelly's 1910 portrayal of Quantrill). I'll tell you one thing: If this guy had been born a lot earlier and had shown up in Lawrence to promote a book like this even as late as the 1940's, he'd have been tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.

Okay. Perhaps I should repeat that my book is a novel, not history, and it is told from the point-of-view of the fevered dream of a dying man. Yes, I did a lot of research for it, but I wasn't trying to defend W.C.Q. It's a novel. And Quantrill wasn't all bad.

The post continues:

I happen to be out of town right now, but were I in Lawrence I would without a doubt show up at this guy's love-fest and make him wish that he'd stayed in Emporia for the day. As it is, when I return I will put it on my list to reread the copy of Connelly that has been in my family since it was published, so as never to forget the real William Clarke Quantrill and what happened in my forebears' beloved city on August 21, 1863.

Love-fest? Really.

There are some posters who are pointing out that Quantrill was not much better than Jim Lane, who raided Missouri and hid in a cornfield during the Lawrence Raid. There were a lot of atrocities to go around. It was war. And the cycle of violence continued for generations. But the point is that I, QUANTRILL is a novel, which means it is a fiction. I am drawn to writing about individuals that society has labeled as monsters. Such as Civil War serial killer Alf Bolin in HELLFIRE CANYON, which won the Spur award from the Western Writers of America.

Oh, well. I hope some of these posters actually show up at the library. Perhaps some of them will actually read the damned book. And by the end they'll find out that what my Quantrill did, even in his own mind, was unpardonable.

For an impartial newspaper review from someone who has actually read the book, click here.

Here's your shirt

2008-08-11T20:42:00.004-05:00

There's a tiny icon of a tee-shirt next to some stories at the CNN website. They started popping up earlier this spring and I had no damned idea what they were until I finally clicked on one of them and discovered you could order a tee-shirt (for only $15, plus shipping) featuring the story's headline with a tagline that says, I just saw it on CNN. Now, not just any headline can be made into a shirt.

There is apparently some litmus test the CNN applies to determine if the shirt-worthiness of a headline. "Nude man, cops tussle in gas station" was a lock this week. So was, "Farmer erects 'Redneck Stonehenge'" and "Snake slithers into weatherguy's pants." But the only headline offered today on a shirt was, "Vet shortage could cripple food supply." Okay, guess somebody at CNN has seen Soylent Green or the classic Twilight Zone episode, "To Serve Man."

But here are today's headlines that, inexplicably, aren't offered as shirts:

Bush hugs bikini-clad Olympians.

Bush wants to alter Endangered Species Act.

and

Russian military pushes into Georgia.

Canyon Diablo

2008-07-20T21:38:00.010-05:00

Here's the setting for the sequel to HELLFIRE CANYON. It's called Canyon Diablo, and it's a ghost town now, but in the 1880s it was considered by some to be the meanest town in the west. My editor and I visited the location on June 11, on our way to Scottsdale. Below is a shot of my Jeep, El Cabrito Loco, at the rim of the canyon, the ruins of a rock building nearby, and a photo showing the old Route 66 bridge crossing Canyon Diablo. The site is on the Navajo Reservation, and there are plans to turn the ghost town into a tourist attraction.

Postcard IV

2008-07-18T17:47:00.006-05:00

This could be the cover shot for a book. A psychotic, psychedelic, angst-filled morality tale of fear and ambition in the Arizona desert. Or a book about yard sales.

Postcard III

2008-07-18T15:57:00.005-05:00

An establishing shot. Below, my astute editor and traveling companion Ice G finds an anti-establishment message.

Postcard II

2008-07-18T15:47:00.012-05:00

More from Two Guns. We were on our way to the Western Writers of American convention at Scottsdale. The maniac below is my editor, Ice G. We were, by this time, baked by the Arizona sun.

Postcard from the Edge

2008-07-18T12:34:00.008-05:00

Long time no blog. Busy. Have lots of photos from the road trip through Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico in June to share. This photo was taken by my editor, Gary (also known as Ice G) at an abandoned KOA on the road leading to the ghost town of Canyon Diablo. I have no idea what the grafitti means, but it is visually interesting. There's a skull, the Spanish word for lord or master, and a chess piece, maybe a bishop.... The place is between Flagstaff and Winslow on I-40, at the Two Guns exit. It is literally an exit to nowhere. There's no town, no paved roads, nothing. Except art.

Reflected light

2008-06-30T22:21:00.009-05:00

Here's what may be my favorite photo from the WWA Convention at Scottsdale, and it was taken by my friend Red Shuttleworth with a disposable camera. I'm with my daughter, Meg, outside the convention center just before the Spur Awards banquet. Red is a poet from Moses Lake, Washington. A few years ago, he was the very first to win a Spur for poetry. He also has 1,320 friends on My Space. I have 18, including some guy named Tom. He blesses all of his friends with poetry bulletins. Here's the first couple of lines of his latest:

Buffered with cheap whiskey, an old man carries a 1960
Pee Wee Soccer Championship medal in his pocket.

By late afternoon he will hand it to a weeping boy
abandoned on a baseball diamond by his friends.

Go make friends with Red. He's a compulsively likeable fellow and true. And, he'll tell you a story. Or take your picture with your daughter when you need to see yourself reflected in the eyes of someone you love.

Scribo* goes silent

2008-06-29T22:33:00.005-05:00

My friend Phillip Finch has discontinued his blog, Scribo* -- although I had already suspected as much, because the blog has been down for some time. Phil confessed during the annual Tallgrass Writing Workshop that had pulled the plug because it was a time sink. I've had the same fears about this blog. Whenever I post, I feel guilty. There are so many other things to do. And while I started out wanting to make it a photo blog, it has devolved into some weird cross between marketing and journaling, and does neither well. But, I won't give up just yet. Now that the hellish schedule of traveling and conferences that is June is all but past, I can see some time at the end of the tunnel. So, as a farewell (I hope temporarily) to Phil's blog, here's the cover of one of his novels, Sugarland, released in 1991 by St. Martin's Press. It is a first-rate book.

Voynich News reviews PHILOSOPHER'S STONE

2008-06-29T22:06:00.004-05:00

Here's one of the more surprising reviews I've come across. It was posted last month in the geeky Voynich News blog, a sort of pop culture monitor of things related to the mysterious manuscript. If you don't know what Voynich is, then nevermind. You wouldn't get it anyway.

Review of Indiana Jones and the Philosopher's Stone...

No, not the 2008 film (though that too has a crystal skull-based storyline): I'm talking about the 1995 book by Max McCoy, which Bantam have just (May 2008) reissued apropos of nothing (apart from perhaps trying to surf the wave of the film's gigantic marketing spend?)

The Voynich Manuscript makes its appearance very early on (p.27, actually the first page of Chapter 1): McCoy manages to present its history very lightly and not bog the reader down in too many details. But as the book is set in 1933, there wasn't a whole UFO angle to cover (or other such modern confections). Instead, you get a little bit of Newbold, Bacon, alchemy, Major John M. Manly (!!!), John Dee, Kelly, the Shew Stone, and even a quick reference to Wilfrid Voynich in New York: basically, everything moves briskly along in the kind of proper screenplay-like way you'd hope from an Indy novel. Yes, there's even the occasional snake (for readers playing Indy buzzword bingo, I guess).

I'll admit it: I was charmed by the book. It's small (293 pocket-size pages), no larger than you'd imagine a Japanese commuter squeezing into a pocket, and reads so quickly that at some points (most notably in the end sequence past the oasis) I deliberately closed my eyes to slow the pace down so that I could properly picture the scene in my mind.

Historically, the book has a deliciously light touch throughout, in particular when Indy and his companion are improbably rescued by an elderly French couple called Nicholas and Peronelle (p.200) - and if you can't work out who they are by that stage in the story, you very possibly deserve to be shot.

Thanks, Voynich News, for noticing. And sorry for calling you geeky.

Hardware

2008-06-18T01:37:00.008-05:00

The Spur Award I was given for Hellfire Canyon on Saturday, June 14, at the Western Writers of America convention at Scottsdale, Ariz.

Scottsdale signing

2008-06-14T14:05:00.005-05:00

Here's a photo taken by my daughter Megan at the Western Writers of America book signing Saturday night at the Barnes & Noble at Scottsdale, Ariz. I'm sitting with Spring Warren, who is signing me a copy of her novel, Turpentine. Spring's novel was a Spur Award finalist. They placed us in front of the magazine rack, which seemed to annoy some customers. Spring comes by her name honestly, by the way -- she says her siblings are Meadow and Summer.

Five Points

2008-06-12T00:13:00.006-05:00

A few days ago, on my way to a writing workshop at Gunnison, I paused at Five Points along the Arkansas River. It was a rainy, overcast day, and there were a few rafts on the river, and I took this photo with my Canon EOS 10D with a 70-200 2.8 L-series lens. It was just a grab shot, but I like the expression of the girl in the front of the raft. This apparently isn't everybody's idea of fun.

HELLFIRE CANYON a Kansas Notable Book

2008-05-31T14:18:00.006-05:00

I haven't been in my office at school for a few days because I bought a terrific old Victorian house on Constitution Street in Emporia and have been busy hauling a zillion pounds of books and tools and guitar amplifiers into it from the places they've been stored for the past couple of years. When I did go into today (Saturdays are quiet and I can get some work done), I found a letter waiting for me from Christie P. Brandau, the state librarian of Kansas.

Hellfire Canyon has been named a 2008 Kansas notable book.

"The Kansas Notable Books list was created to recognize the literary richness of our state," Brandau wrote. "It is a project of the Kansas Center for the Book at the State Library of Kansas. The annual selection of fifteen books reflecting Kansas cultural heritage features high quality titles with wide public appeal that are either written by a Kansas resident or about a Kansas-related topic. A committee considered the universe of eligible books published in 2007 and met over the course of several months to evaluate and discuss titles. The culmination of the commitee's work was a recommended list presented to the State Librarian for final decision.

"As a Notable Book author you are invited to participate in several events, including a reception at the State Library this summer at which the award will be presented by Governor Kathleen Sebelius (date to be announced), and a reception on Friday, September 26, 2008, in Lawrence on the eve of the River City Reading Festival."

Hellfire Canyon also won the Spur Award for best original paperback from the Western Writers of America. I'll received that award next month at the WWA Convention in Scottsdale, Ariz. My editor, Gary Goldstein, will also accept the award on behalf of Kensington Books.

I'm heading for the Writing the Rockies workshop at Western State College in Gunnison, Colo., in a few days, to give the keynote address. Then, I'm picking Gary up at the airport in Denver and we're going to road trip it to Scottsdale. Along the way, we're going to discuss a sequel to Hellfire Canyon, which might be called Canyon Diablo.

My association with Gary goes all the way back to The Sixth Rider, which was published by Doubleday in 1991 and won the Best First Novel award from WWA. Although that book was acquired by Greg Tobin, Gary was the line editor.

I, QUANTRILL review

2008-05-19T22:47:00.013-05:00

Jeremy Jones reviewed my new book in last Sunday's Spartanburg (S.C.) Herald-Journal. Here, in part, is what he had to say:

Once a year, Max McCoy writes a novel in which he takes an iconic figure and peels back the layers of myth and legend to reveal a decidedly more interesting human being underneath.

"I, Quantrill," released this past week by Signet, is his 17th and, perhaps, his best book yet.

Over the past two decades, McCoy has had Jesse James tell his story through Mark Twain; he has sent an anxious Wild Bill Hickok to his first gunfight; and he has launched Indiana Jones' quest for the crystal skull.

McCoy is the author of historical Westerns, thrillers and four original Indiana Jones adventures. Earlier this spring, the Western Writers of America awarded "Hellfire Canyon," the Spur Award for best paperback original novel... McCoy has a way of clarifying complex subjects without oversimplifying them. His novels are thick with plot, alive with strong characterization, and rich with historic detail.

He goes on to quote Johnny D. Boggs:

"Max McCoy has a love for language," said South Carolina novelist Johnny D. Boggs, author of "The Hart Brand" and the Spur Award-winning "Doubtful Canon." "There's a rhythm to his sentences, great word choices, a wonderful cadence, superb imagery. His stories often flow like the lyrics to a good song. I'll often find myself reading his sentences two or three times because I admire them, and I'm trying to figure out how he does it."

Who can argue with that?

McCoy's decision to use a reviled (or revered) historic figure as a first-person narrator immediately engorges "I, Quantrill" with tension by putting the reader inside Quantrill's head and building a level of intimacy between reader and narrator that is both exciting and disturbing.

"Max McCoy is one of the top writers at work today in the Western field," Boggs said. "Max does sound historical research, and he puts his own twist in his novels. He has this knack for bringing historical figures to vibrant life, whether it's Wild Bill Hickok or Jesse James. He shows them for what they were: humane yet savage."

You can read the review in its entirety here.