Western Writers May 2004 Newsletter
MAY 2004 Vol. 8 No. 5
Howdy everyone. We're sending the newsletter off as usual and "bucking the cougar" -- that beast who shows teeth and quietly strides around the camp looking for problems, growling a warning. However, we have photos we want to share and will risk being thrown to the wolves. Enjoy ----- (our apologies to those who cannot view the photos here ... we'll try to put them on another source so all can view them.
A WAGON FOR GENERAL ARMIJO
by Frazer Williamson.
Philip St.George Cooke, now promoted to Captain, stood at attention before Colonel Stephen Watts Kearney who had orders to take New Mexico for the United States with unseasoned troops.
"At ease, Captain. I have a mission for you." Kearney explained what he wanted Cooke to do. "And I shall be a day or so behind you with the rest of the army," he finished.
"I am to have only five men, Sir?"
"Counting J.W. McGoffin and yourself you will be seven. Seven is a good number, Captain."
"But is it enough to ensure that wagon will get through?"
"You will leave here in the morning, and you will see that wagon safely delivered to General Armijo in Santa Fe."
"Yes, Sir." Cooke was wondering if he would do that.
* * *
Kearney picked up the letter hed had at Fort Leavenworth from the Secretary of War, William L. Marcy, instructing him to march to Fort Bent and to take New Mexico from there. He read part of it again. It said the people of New Mexico were well disposed towards the United States and would welcome democracy. Kearny hoped so. His army was hopelessly small.
If young Cooke got the wagon to General Armijo, Governor of New Mexico he could take it all without a shot being fired.
* * *
General Manuel Armijo was worried. He knew the wagon was coming because his cousins husband James McGoffin had negotiated for him with the President Polk. With that wagon all his gambling and business problems could be settled and he could depart for a new life. "What did Mexico City expect if they wouldnt send him troops to fight the Americanos?"
Pacing only increased his worry about the wagon.
* * *
Cooke and James McGoffin rode ahead of the wagon and the five Dragoons. "How was your brother's wife, J.W.?"
"Susans low after her miscarriage."
"Shes young, she'll get over it."
"Sam should never have married a girl of eighteen. And he sure as hell never should have brought her out here."
"Lucky that Belgian doctor, Masure was around."
"Even he reckons Susan should be nearer civilization."
"Does she know Sam's a Government agent?"
"No."
"You and Sam have bought New Mexico for President Polk with what's in this wagon."
"Difficulty is gettin' it there. We got Comanche either side of us. They just showed themselves," McGoffin said.
The Comanche continued to shadow them.
* * *
Until they came to a place of hopping and fluttering buzzards that took to the air when they arrived. There were four white men staked on the desert.
"Deserters," J.W. said.
None of them alive, burnt by the sun, and eaten by ants and buzzards.
"Best get to some kind of cover," J.W. said. "This is a good place for the Comanche."
The Comanche came whooping down from the inclines on either side.
* * *
Cover was a dried up creek bed, where from under the wagon they held off the Indians with flintlock muskets and handguns. The Comanche saw they weren't going anywhere and picked off the horses with lances and arrows, holding down the white men with the few rifles they had. One Dragoon Private was killed, and the Sergeant wounded, but they made nightfall when the Comanche withdrew, lit fires, and set up an incessant chanting and drumming.
"What are the chances of a man getting through to Santa Fe?" Cooke asked.
"Even if he got through help wouldnt arrive for a couple of days."
"So much then for our Manifest Destiny," Cook said, without bitterness. He was disappointed that he would not be around to share in it when all these savages were swept from the Great Plains and the land would be truly American.
* * *
Next morning the Indians were in no hurry.
"Suits us fine," J.W. said. "We need to hold out until Kearney comes. Hes on his way."
The Comanche made a sport of taunting them, and when Cooke went out with a white handkerchief tied to a rifle, the Chief rode up to him with a lance. "You take our land. We take your life," he said, and knocked the rifle from Cookes hand, but allowed him to walk back to the wagon.
The Comanche formed up in a circle and came in screeching from all sides.
"Make every bullet count," Cooke yelled.
Horses fell and so did the Comanche.
The wheels of the wagon were a great protection and the spokes sprouted arrows, and lances lay on the ground. The men including the wounded Sergeant gave good account of themselves but their ammunition didn't last, and hammers fell on empty cylinders as guns cooled. One of the soldiers came out from beneath the wagon grabbed one of the lances and side-stepping a pony thrust the point in deep under the Indians ribs, hauled it out and defended himself against two others. Cooke went to his assistance and brought down and killed an Indian. The Chief who had struck the rifle from his hand rode at him with his lance. He saw triumph in the Indian's eyes, as he struggled to free the lance from a Comanche heart, and then a look of stunned surprise as he toppled from his horse to lie dead at Cooke's feet. Cooke heard shooting and wondered where it was coming from. He reckoned Kearney had made good time, and he thanked God for it.
J.W. hauled him back under the wagon, and from there he watched as the Comanche whirled in confusion. Finally they gathered themselve's and rode off chased by a group of Mexican Cavalry. A resplendent figure rode down to the wagon from the skyline. He wore a plumed cocked hat, which he swept off in a grand gesture to the men under the wagon.
"My dear cousin," he said. "I thought I should come and make sure my wagon arrived safely."
* * *
When Colonel Kearney arrived in Santa Fe, there was no opposition, because General Manuel Armijo had departed with his wagon.
FINDING AND LOSING JOHN WAYNE
by Erv Bobo
Ray ushered me into his house, into a living room dimly lit. As the new kid in the neighborhood, this was my first indoor visit and what I saw puzzled me: four of my other new friends sitting on the carpet, staring upward at the lighted dial of a table radio.
In my home, as the youngest of three children, the radio mattered only when Edgar Bergen and Charley McCarthy held sway. Other times, it seemed only to play The Grand Ol' Opry or when my brother took charge-- Inner Sanctum. As soon as I heard the screaking door of the sanctum, I left the room, a hard lesson learned.
On this night, however, as I joined Ray and the boys, I found a new world riding the airwaves. The opening trumpets of the William Tell Overture swept me, for the first time, into the old west of The Lone Ranger.
On subsequent nights, I met Straight Arrow, Bobby Benson of the B Bar B and Sky King.
For that half-hour each evening, grown-ups did not bother us. Perhaps we would not have heard them if they tried, for our ears were filled with the thunder of hoofs and the crash of gunfire and our eyes darted to the shadowed corners of the room, ever watchful for an ambush.
Following the program, we rode the range of our neighborhood. Every tree, every trash can, every crawl space beneath a porch held a potential for being ambushed or for lurking in your own ambush. We fired guns made of pointed fingers with cocked thumbs, worked the lever action of straight sticks of wood, killing down the soft summer twilight.
However, there was more to cowboys, much more just beyond my ken. Ray, the oldest and thus the expert, said John Wayne was the best cowboy of all. Yet, the neighborhood theater seemed never to book his movies.
The family next door to Ray, wealthier by far, had a 16mm movie projector and on some summer nights would hang a bed sheet on the wall of their shed, showing a movie we were invited to watch from Rays backyard. And as I met each new leading man, whether in a western or otherwise, my question was always the same. Is that John Wayne?
The answer was always the same. "No."
Movies changed for me along with the radio programs. With a group of friends my own age and a neighborhood theater, I was no longer bound by seeing the movies selected by my siblings: I Walked With a Zombie or The Bodysnatcher (my brother) or something starring Frank Sinatra (my sister). I could watch the Sinatra movies, but for my brothers choices I had to hide my face between the seats, cover my ears, and beg him to tell me when the cartoon came on.
Under Rays guidance, I found heroes: Roy Rogers and The Durango Kid in black-and-white, Wild Bill Elliot and Gene Autry in Sepiatone, Joel McCrae and Randolph Scott in Technicolor. Yet, perhaps due to the personal tastes of the theater owner, John Wayne still eluded me.
In those days, major movies employed a different kind of playbill: "Cast of Thousands" or "Three Years in the Making" were common exclamations in the advertisements. And there was another, though used rarely: "Uncut!"
At the age of eight or nine, I had no clear idea of what uncut meant, but knew instinctively that it must be something positive. So when I saw that exclamation in an ad for -- yes! A John Wayne movie!-- I was intrigued, but
But something had happened to me the previous week. At the theater, watching the Previews of Coming Attractions, some part of me had aged, grown up, become ready to accept a new challenge. For the next week I told myself I knew I could do this thing-- thought I could do it without fear -- hoped I would not cower between the seats as I had in the past.
The John Wayne movie was at a downtown first-run theater and my mother was willing to take me but, in my newfound bravado, I elected to go with my friends to the neighborhood theater that Sunday.
I survived the movie without psychological scarring (I think), but it did leave a mark on my soul. It was a matinee movie and I admit I felt much better when I left the dark theater and walked out into the afternoon light, each friend telling the others he wasn't scared. Still, I felt I had passed a test, been blooded, entered the ranks of the not-very-afraid.
The mark left on my western soul? It is one of the regrets of my life that I chose Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein over Red River.
Watch your back side, pilgrim
POSTHOLES AND SUNSETS
by Charles T. Whipple
Whenever I visit my folks in Show Low, Arizona, there's work to do.
One year, I helped Dad build a granary shed to replace the one struck by lightning. The shed burned to the ground, but its concrete floor was still good so we built a new one right on top of it -- same size, same shape, and, three years later, the same shade of iron gray.
Today we dig postholes. Dad wants to put ketch pens in the corner of the field on the bench so he can load yearlings and haul them out to the section east of town. I crowbar the sandy loam loose and then shovel it out of the hole to make a pile on the side. Dad supervises. We rest a lot, me a city boy and Dad in his eighties. And we talk a lot, about the way things used to be, or how we imagined they were. There was a time when we'd have refreshed ourselves from a canvas waterbag cooled by wicking and evaporation. Now we drink cold pop from a cooler in the back of the pickup. Only two animals in the field, a fat sorrel horse named Red and a stray dog that's adopted him. Horse and dog are always together. Dad's too old to ride Red and exercise him, so the horse just stands around and gains weight. The dog watches.
A gravel road runs north between our field and Uncle Howard's. And over across the way to the West, I can see the outline of the forge Grandpa Whipple built. Behind the forge, the land climbs a bit so that the horizon's a ridge just west of the Robson place. I don't know how many degrees there are to a man's field of vision, but from the big Ponderosas on the hill east of the State Highway yard to the junipers that mark the drop-off into Show Low Creek, the horizon pretty much fills a man's eyes from one side to the other.
In July, the sun goes down through the knobs of one-seed juniper that dot Robson ridge. There's not all that much color until the sun gets about halfway into the trees. Then God upends His paint box and the western sky turns into flames of orange and red, ocher and purple, and deep, deep blue. My Dad and I stand there with five or six empty postholes in the ground and watch Him work His glory on the Arizona sky. Son, Dad says, I wouldn't want to live anywhere else on Earth.
Dad left in '95, but horses, dogs, and sunsets keep him alive.
MESQUITEER CALL
Hey, all you Mesquiteers! (AKA, all of you who are attending the 2004 WWA convention in Mesquite NV) Pat Nipper PANIPPER@Earthlink.net is taking names for the 1:30 pm shuttle bus to Mesquite from the airport. If we can fill the bus, we can get a really discounted rate. Let Pat know if you are interested.
Sandy aka Hoglips@aol.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TIME IS RUNNING OUT
SIGN UP FOR SHUTTLE SERVICE
NEED FIVE MORE FOR DISCOUNT
From: Patricia Nipper
Subject: Chartering a shuttle to Mesquite
Guess what? We now have nine people signed up for the shuttle from the
Las Vegas airport to Mesquite. If we can get five more, we can charter our own shuttle and only pay around $18 each. Of course, the more we get, the less we pay. The charter is $250, as I remember.
As it stands, we qualify for a group rate of the regular shuttle and
that's $20 each.
As we get closer to June 15th, more people will probably need a shuttle
so please let me know ASAP if you want to take one around the 1:30
schedule and I'll get crackin' on the charter.
Pat
WWA BOOK SIGNING AT NORCO, CALIFORNIA
SASS End of Trail, April 28 - May 2, 2004
The Main Western Writers of America tent area
Thadd Turner, Miles Swarthout
Marge Bzovy, SASS Member Bill Wheeler
Gary LeDoux, Sherrie Monahan
Lee Silva, Marge Bzovy
NEW BOOKS:
From Best-selling Author Ralph Cotton, May 2004.
Another installment for the Ranger - Big Iron Series novel is now in bookstores
HELLS RIDERS
A Merciless Massacre
In his years as an Arizona Ranger, Sam Burrack believes he has seen every act of cruelty and brutality one man can bestow upon another. But nothing has prepared him for the butchery perpetrated by a gang of scalp hunters in the settlement of Clifton Wells. Although on assignment escorting a prisoner, Sam will not allow the local law to pursue the killers without his assistance.
Sheriff Boyd Tackett is more than willing to accept Sam's help because he has compelling personal reasons to see the culprits caught. With no idea of how many foes, they're facing, the lawmen must learn to stick together - and trust each other - if they expect to bring these men to justice.
Thanks to those who have posted reviews at Amazon.com, and Barnes & Noble.
www.ralphcotton.com
That's all for this month, pards. This may possibly be our last newsletter with photos and art work. Since AOL wants to remove all Spam which includes all notices and newsletters, we will be coming to you in a different form. From time to time we might have interesting WWA photos that you can view on another server. We've had it good here on the AOL Range, but now that we have been hog-tied, we must seek other sources to be able to communicate.
See y'all in Mesquite,
Marge, Sandy, Kim
WESTERN WRITERS CHAT WEBSITE
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