We send our prayers to the folks on the Atlantic coast areas. Every hurricane imaginable has been sweeping destruction across this territory. Hopefully an end will come soon. Let's look at our newsletter and view the many talents of our contributing writers.

Our member Robert Fulton sent this photo. The home of a friend of his after the
hurricane in Florida. Note the only item standing is the radio on the table.

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A WESTERN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

After they hanged my paw
It jus' left me an' maw
To live with Granpaw down at Hat Creek Bend

'Twarn't really a spread
More like a homestead
To me the land stretched on without end.

Granpaw would say with laughter
Shoot first ask questions after
What I got is mine and mine I will defend.

So mebbe he was right
To shoot an Injun one night
When he found that redskin skulkin' 'round the bend.

So I got the Injun's pony
An' I renamed him Tony
And for ten years that hoss was my only friend.

Granpaw left in forty-nine
To dig a big gold mine
He'd an itch to return rich to Hat Creek Bend.

He rode off with Steve and Vince
And we ain't never seed 'em since
He left maw and me the critters for to tend.

But poor maw she got ill
As women so often will
And we buried her here at Hat Creek Bend

An' then we had the Civil War
But what we wuz fightin' for
To understand I really can't pretend

We mostly fought back east
That's the time I liked the least
I often wished that I was back at Hat Creek Bend

At Manassas with General Lee
I got shot here in my knee
But twenty thousand other fellers met their end

When the doc let me out of bed
I went back to the homestead
And thought I'd never more leave old Hat Creek Bend


by Miz Tinny and Fretherne
(from Chuckwagon tales) © 2004




THE WILL OF DON HERNANDEZ

by Frazer Williamson.

Our village is San Philippe, and our priest is Padre Paulo. In the chapel we peons of Don Hernandez awaited the arrival of our lord and master, and only when he arrived with his wife Donna Isabella, his two sons, and his daughter was mass celebrated.

Afterwards we stayed for Padre Paulo had told us that Don Hernandez had something to say about the war with the Americanos. Padre Paulo said, "Don Hernandez will now speak. We must listen attentively and do as he commands, for God has placed Don Hernandez in authority over us." And he bowed to Don Hernandez.
As Don Hernandez got to his feet the chapel door opened and closed again on its creaking hinges, and the priests brother Pedro came in and stood in the aisle at the back. All eyes turned towards him including those of his brother who grew pale, and those of Don Hernandez, which flashed with anger at the interruption. Pedro stood and although he wore no pistol, two bandoleers were Xed across his chest.
Don Hernandez waited to see if he would sit, and deciding he would not began speaking. It was then Pedro moved forward with a clanking of spurs, walking to where his brother sat at the front and sat beside him. Again Don Hernandez eyes flashed anger before continuing. "My people," said Don Hernandez. "Our country needs you."
"Notice," said Pedro the priests brother, loud enough for us all to hear, "that he did not say your country needs you. He owns the country, he and the likes of him."
There was a sharp intake of breath from all gathered. Don Hernandez became livid, and Padre Paulo lost all color to the point of fainting. He managed to say in a shocked voice: "Pedro, in the name of Christ, say no more."
"I have more to say," said Pedro.
No peon had ever spoken to Don Hernandez in such a manner, and no peon had ever stood up and ignored a nobleman, as did Pedro Gonzalez.
"This rich man," he said, "wants you to lay down your lives so that he can go on enjoying his riches."
"It is their duty," thundered Don Hernandez. "If you do not protect my lands you will have no means of making your livelihoods."
"That is true," said Padre Paulo. "As your priest I tell you it is your duty to protect the lands of your master."
"Los Americanos," said Don Hernandez, "will make slaves of you all. You must fight for your freedom."
"Freedom!" shouted Pedro Gonzalez, holding up his hands for silence. "You will be fighting to remain in captivity to His Excellency Don Hernandez."
This caused much confusion. Some said it was true, and others feared what would happen to them if the Americanos won the war.
"If you men will fight, as I know you can fight we will drive the Americanos from our land," said Don Hernandez.
"And if you men will die, as I have seen others die at Resaca de la Palma, you will be dead and the Americanos will be victorious."
"You speak treason," said Don Hernandez.
"I speak the truth," said Pedro. "I have seen our men, peons like ourselves, ill-equipped with flintlock muskets and so poorly trained that they can not shoot straight. They were mown down with grapeshot and decimated with rifles that shoot deadly from four hundred yards. We have neither canon nor rifles to match the range of theirs. Our canons blow up in our faces. To beat the Americanos we need weapons as good if not better than theirs."
"You are a coward, Gonzalez," said Don Hernandez, "if you ran from the battle of Resaca de la Palma."
"We had six thousand men against their two thousand and we lost at both Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma."
"You are a coward and a deserter."
"I am neither. I am on leave as there is a ceasefire agreed between General Arista and the American General."
"You speak treason."
"I speak truth."
"Sedition," said Don Hernandez.
"Pedro," said Padre Paulo. "Make amends. Don Hernandez will forgive you. Recant what you have said and return to your regiment."
"I recant nothing. I believe Don Hernandez wants us to die so that he, his wife, sons, and daughter can go on living as grandees."
We held our breath for although we have known this from birth not one of us has ever said it aloud to one of our Mexican grandees. Padre Paulo whispered to his brother that he should go.
"I came here to ask these poor people not to fight."
"Treason and sedition!" exclaimed Don Hernandez.
"It is common sense."
"They will fight. They have no choice."
"They can refuse to fight."
"Any man refusing to fight I will have shot."
Turning to the people Pedro Gonzalez said, "You will not die if you flee to the hills. In the hills you can live for yourselves, yes, and die for yourselves."
"But what will happen to our land?" someone asked.
"It will be fought over and irrigated with the blood of the Americanos and the Mexicans, and afterwards there will be new landlords for you to come back to. You do not have to die for the like of Don Hernandez."
"It is madness to resist the God given authority of Don Hernandez," said Padre Paulo.
"It is madness not to. The only authority which is God given is that which produces no evil. Ask yourself, my brother, if Don Hernandez and his like produces no evil." With that Pedro Gonzalez made his way to the door.
Don Hernandez watched him, and when Pedro pushed his way outside, he followed him.
We sat there chattering like monkeys, then from outside we heard a shot.
We rushed out to find Pedro Gonzalez stretched out, shot in the back, and Don Hernandez with a smoking pistol. He turned to us. "Back inside," he ordered. "You will hear my will."

WRITING THE POPULAR NOVEL

Loren D. Estleman, author of the Amos Walker mystery series and Page Murdock Western series, explains how to achieve success in his new book, "Writing the Popular Novel" (2004, Writer's Digest Books). Filled with Estleman's considerable
charm and wit, "Writing the Popular Novel" contains practical advice for any aspiring writer. In this excerpt, he offers up suggestions about sentence structure:

"Forget what your ancient high school textbook told you about never beginning a sentence with 'and' or 'but.' People do it all the time in conversation, and written English has always tended to follow the lead of popular discourse. To swim against this current is to appear stilted and old-fashioned, which is fine, if you're writing an epistolary novel set in seventeenth-century London. But otherwise you'll come off as a prig. And no one has ever explained to anyone's satisfaction why the rule was drafted in the first place."

Get more practical advice on writing in the book, "Writing the Popular Novel" ($15.99), at the WritersDigest.com bookstore:
http://www.writersdigest.com/store/booksdisplay.asp?id=10935

Loren Estleman is a past president of Western Writers of America.

FROM AFRICA TO THE AMERICAN WEST

Howdy Pards! My name is Allen and I'd like to introduce myself.

In 1981, as a musician, I decided to dabble in writing country western music, straying away from pop jazz and funk that most Black musicians like myself played at the time. Many musicians cross the lines of genres in order to gain a broader appreciation of the art. Pat Boone tried Heavy Metal and most Country music fans remember Garth Brooks alter-personality Chris Gaines. I enjoyed the music and continued to write more. As time passed the music caused me to place myself in the position of the people and things I sang about which brought the eventual question; suppose a Black person were living the "Western Cowboy Life," what would that be like?

The answer came as I began to write a fictional novel titled "The Horse Chiefs." The main characters of this book are a free Black horse breeder from Pennsylvania and a California Indian vaquero. In an attempt to find prototypes for the characters I needed to do research. This research revealed big facts and small side notes of true Black cowboys and girls, miners, sea captains and sailors, lawmen, outlaws, soldiers, sodbusters and more.

The next step for me was to share the information from these books with whom ever would listen. I developed a western music and speaking presentation called, "Nineteen Hands- From Africa To The American West." I visited schools and museums in Southern California with this presentation.

Many of the books I used for reference were written in the early part of the 20th Century and some were written more recently by authors like Kareem Abdul Jabbar, former player of the L.A. Lakers.

In Jack Whyte's, fantasy novel, "Skystone," he notes information about the North African Berbers being admired by the Romans for riding without bridles. What was also interesting to me was his explanation of how the word "Barbarian" was coined far back in antiquity to describe the Berbers of Africa. In my research I came across an article which mentions that the Barb horse got it's name from a Latin term for chin-beard.

History has taught us that the Black Africans from the western part of the African continent, who constituted the largest part of forced migration to the Western hemisphere, had integral trade and cultural relations with North Africans via Saharan routes and rivers like the Nile. Even today in the Sudan's "Janjaweed"(Arab horsemen) conflict, it's as if we can look into a primitive thousand-year-old mirror to catch a glimpse of how these cultures may have interacted in the past. In history these cultures brought their horse and cattle knowledge and skills with them to European colonies in the Americas.

In the future I intend to present the African horse and cattle cultures and what influence they may have had in the European colonization of the Americas. If any reader is interested in my sources and references, I would be happy to provide the information.

Thanks for reading,
Allen L. Lee

PUBLISHER INTERESTED IN WESTERNS

My name is Jennifer Maughan and I am an Associate Editor for Gibbs Smith, Publisher. We are looking to expand our category of Western-related books, and I would like to get the word out to members of your group. Gibbs Smith, Publisher has been around for 35 years, and we're based in Layton, Utah. Please check out our website at www.gibbs-smith.com.

GSP is interested in publishing non-fiction books that celebrate the history and culture that is unique to the West--architecture, food, people, cities, and more. Some of our recent publications in the genre are: Nudie the Rodeo Taylor by Jamie Nudie & Mary Lynn Cabrall; Lost Coast : Stories from the Surf by Drew Kampion; Spectacular Homes of Texas by Jolie Carpenter; Cowboy Boots by Tyler Beard; Western Shirts: A Classic American Fashion by Steve Weil and G. Daniel DeWeese; Sante Fe: A Walk Through Time by Kingsley Hammett; Desert Style by Mary Whitesides; Cowboy Chic by Chase Reynolds Ewald; 100 Years of Western Wear by Tyler Beard. We also have published many collections of cowboy poetry and cowboy wisdom.

At this time, I am looking to review author's ideas via query letters and synopses. I'd love to hear from you to see how we can help each other out.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Maughan
Associate Editor
Gibbs Smith, Publisher
801-779-1492
jenniferm@gibbs-smith.com

REMEMBER WHY YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO VOTE

Women have the right to vote, thanks to those who suffered

The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of "obstructing sidewalk traffic."

They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the "Night of Terror" on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food, all of it colorless slop, was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press. So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because -- why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie
"Iron Jawed Angels." It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder. All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was -- with herself. "One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie," she said. "What would those women think of the way I use -- or don't use -- my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn." The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her "all over again."

HBO will run the movie periodically before releasing it on video and DVD. I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade
a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy. The doctor admonished the men: "Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."

Please pass this on to all the women you know. We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very
courageous women.

Article submitted by G Sam Carr

WORDS THAT CONFUSE

ALREADY OR ALL READY?

All ready is a phrase meaning completely prepared, as in As soon as I put my coat on, Ill be all ready. Already, however, is an adverb used to describe something that has happened before a certain time, as in What do you mean youd rather stay home? Ive already got my coat on.

That's all for this month, pards. Next month is October, so if you have any ghost stories, story reviews, new books published, book signings, poetry, attended conferences, writing hints, western history trivia, Re-enactments attended or coming up, old time west news or anything western. Send them in to MargeeBee@aol.com We could sure use some exciting old west ghost stories that would be timely for Halloween. Thanks so much to all our contributors. We sincerely appreciate your efforts and great talent.

Our best wishes.
and ------

Walk with your horse slightly behind you so your feet don't get crushed.

Marge, Sandy, Kim

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