During our recent vacation to Lake Tahoe, hubby and I took a DUKW tour of the Lake…both on land and in water. You see, “duck” vehicles are the refurbished amphibious vehicles used on D-Day now used as tourist transport on major waterways.
Interestingly, the acronym isn’t any military jargon at all. “D” indicates a vehicle designed in 1942. “U” means utility, “K” indicates all-wheel drive, and “W” stands for two powered rear axles. Since we’ve already taken road/water rides around Boston and into the Charles River, and throughout the hills of San Francisco with a drive straight into the bay, we couldn’t wait.
Well, Lake Tahoe fascinates just about everybody, from Ponderosa fans to skiers, hikers, boaters, photographers, residents and tourists of all ages. It’s one of my favorite places on earth. But the first folks to love this place were the Washoe Indians.
The tribe lent its term “tahlah-act” meaning “great mountain” to the tallest peak at the lake, today’s Mt. Tallac at 9,735 feet. Some say the pronunciation is “tayak.”
The Washoe considered the mountain to be sacred, and their legends live on today. Particularly about the cross.
The cross on Mt. Tallac’s northeastern face is visible when the snow begins to melt in the spring. Well, it was a warm summer day when we saw it, but the mountains were still clumped with snow. Folks skied at the surrounding resorts on the Fourth of July. That’s because the winter just past was Tahoe’s fourth-snowiest on record.
The minute I saw the cross on August 9, I knew I needed to post here about it. But the subject mirrors the topic of my filly sister Winnie Griggs’s post of August 22. I didn’t want her to think I was “biting off her” (This was a term my kids always used when one of them copied the other LOL). Should I wait and post my cross blog later on? Then I realized: it’s sacred, marvelous, symbolic, magnificent to know that there are two such hallowed crosses in the West. I decided not to postpone this post.
So. When you check out the cross, it’s actually a “couloir” or series of deep gorges just to the left of the summit.
This beautiful watercolor is by artist Lois Wooldridge.
Many legends abound about the cross. One Washoe belief held that if all the snow melted away, the world would end. Others forecast a season of drought. Still another said the cross disappearing meant the lake would dry up. The tale our DUCK guide shared was if the cross melted, Tahoe would experience a record winter of snow. And was he ever right! After the “cross” melted last year, the winter of 2010-2011 saw 643 inches of snow. Annual expectation is 300-500. The deepest June snowpack on record was this year’s 71.25 inches on the 13th.
As a tribute to Mt. Tallac and the cross, the opening sequence of the seventh through eleventh and final season of the classic Western TV show Bonanza was filmed from the north section of Nevada Beach (across the lake on the east shore) so that Mount Tallac and its snow cross appeared prominently in the background. As the Ponderosa map burned, you could see the Cartwright men riding up to the cameras with the mountain and cross in the back ground.
This beautiful site draws you in no matter where you are in the area. The next day after the DUCK tour, we rode the Heavenly Valley ski gondola and saw Tallac’s breathtaking beauty from the observation deck at an elevation of 9,123. The 360 degree views, of the Lake, the mountains, Desolation Wilderness and Carson Valley are beyond breathtaking.
Has anybody else seen Mt. Tallac and the snow cross?
Fellow Filly, Linda Broday, and I just finished up a month’s booksigning tour for our newest anthology, “Give Me a Texas Outlaw”. We spent a lot of time up in the Liberal, Kansas area. We were the hottest act in town. Thanks Liberal!
One of our visits was to the famous Dalton Gang Hideout in Meade, Kansas, where we were met and welcomed by none other than the charming Doc Holliday. I’m adding a picture as proof of our adventure which was very interesting. Seeing Doc Holliday through the eyes of the curator Marc Ferguson was most mesmerizing, but I’ll save the Doc and the Dalton Gang Hideout for another blog.
A few months ago, I blogged on the Code of the West, using a fairly common interpretation of the code.
One of the most interesting things Doc Holliday showed us was the best known cowboy in America John Wayne’s eulogy spoken at his funeral by his son, Patrick Wayne. One thing that most people recognize about the heroic cowboy was that no matter how famous he became, he lived by his own Code of the West.
It’s my pleasure to share the eulogy and John Wayne’s Code of the American Cowboy.
A cowboy does not judge color of skin, but by character within.
A cowboy always respects a lady and tips his hat to all that pass him.
A cowboy stands strong for what the American Frontier is all about. Freedom, truth, justice and the American way.
A cowboy will not be wronged, nor wrong another. The justice he deems out depends on that.
A cowboy is loyal and hard working and maintains a high ethic.
A cowboy loves his country, and will fight for its principals and sovereignty.
A cowboy respects his animals and the earth they roam upon.
A cowboy is faithful to what is entrusted to him.
A cowboy is bound by duty, honor and gratitude for what God has given him, which includes his family and friends.
10. A cowboy maintains a hidden code in his heart, for all to see.
I found a few facts on John Wayne that I didn’t know.
His birth name was Marion Morrison. Although his father was a pharmacist Wayne’s parents moved from Iowa to the Mojave Desert and tried their hand at ranching. That’s where he and his little brother, Robert swam in irrigation ditches and rode horses to school. After failure at ranching, his family moved to Glendale, California, where Wayne delivered medicines for his father, sold newspapers and had an Airedale dog named “Duke” … where he got his nickname.
John Wayne was bright, did well in school both academically and in football. He narrowly missed acceptance to Annapolis, so he went to USC on a football scholarship from 1925-27. Tom Mix got him a summer job as a prop man in exchange for football tickets. (Bet, he couldn’t get by with that today.) On the set he became friends with director John Ford for whom, among others, he began doing bit parts, thus the birth of John Wayne. His first featured film was in 1930 “Men Without Women”, where he went on to make about 70 low-budget westerns while his career basically bogged down in the mud. In 1939, Ford cast Wayne in “Stagecoach” the movie that made him a star. He appeared in over 250 movies, many of epic proportion.
His conservative stance was reflected in his producing, directing and staring in “The Alamo” in 1960; while his patriotic stand was enshrined in “The Green Berets” in 1968, which he co-directed and also stared in.
John Wayne won an Oscar for his role as one-eyed Rooster Cogburn in “True Grit” in 1969; and in 1979 he received a Congressional Gold Medal But, he is best remember for his parts in Ford’s cavalry trilogy, “Fort Apache”, “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon”, and “Rio Grande”.
The Outlaw Josey Walesis my favorite western movie classic, and certainly a favorite western read. A gritty western with touches of humor and a slight splash of romance, what I like most about this story is the detail to history and the stark portrayal of good and bad in EVERYONE. At the start Josey Wales is a peaceful Missouri farmer. He’s driven to revenge by the brutal murder of his wife and son by a band of pro-Union Jayhawkers — Senator James H. Lane’s Redlegs from Kansas.
Wales joins a group of pro-Confederate Missouri guerrillas/bushwhackers led by William T. Anderson. At the conclusion of the war, Captain Fletcher persuades the guerrillas to surrender, saying they have been granted amnesty. Josey Wales, still holding a grudge, refuses to surrender. As a result, he survives the massacre of the men by Captain Terrill’s Redlegs, who’ve now joined the Union Army. Wales intervenes and guns down several Redlegs with a Gatling gun.
Senator Lane puts up a $5,000 bounty on Wales. Wales begins a life on the run from Union militia and bounty hunters while still seeking vengeance and a chance for a new beginning in Texas. Along the way, he unwillingly accumulates a diverse group of traveling companions despite all indications that he would rather be left alone. His companions include a wily old Cherokee named Lone Watie, a young Navajo woman, and an elderly Yankee woman from Kansas and her granddaughter rescued from a band of Comancheros.
In the final showdown, Josey and his companions are cornered in a ranch house which is fortified to withstand Indian raids.
The film was inspired by a 1972 novel by Forrest Carter, originally titled Gone to Texas and later retitled The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales. I’m much more inclined to curl up with a book than turn on the tube–but as far as movies go, this is one that can hold me captive from the first scene to the last. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it! I watched it again last summer on the History Channel.
The script was worked on by Sonia Chernus and producer Bob Daley, and Eastwood himself paid some of the money to obtain the screen rights. Michael Cimino and Philip Kaufman later oversaw the writing of the script. Kaufman wanted the film to stay as close to the novel as possible and retained many of the mannerisms in Wales’s character which Eastwood would display on screen, such as his distinctive lingo with words like “reckon”, “hoss” (instead of “horse”) and “ye” (instead of “you”) and spitting tobacco juice on animals and victims. The characters of Wales, the Cherokee chief, Navajo squaw and the old settler woman and her daughter all appeared in the novel In 1996, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.
Here’s an original movie trailer:
I found a site with favorite quotes from the movie. Here’s a few of my favorite:
Josey Wales: Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. ‘Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That’s just the way it is.
**
Laura Lee: Kansas was all golden and smelled like sunshine. Josey Wales: Yeah, well, I always heard there were three kinds of suns in Kansas, sunshine, sunflowers, and sons-of-bitches.
**
Josey Wales: When I get to likin’ someone, they ain’t around long. Lone Watie: I notice when you get to DISlikin’ someone they ain’t around for long neither.
**
Carpetbagger: Your young friend could use some help.
[holds up a bottle of patent medicine] This is it… one dollar a bottle. It works wonders on wounds. Josey Wales: Works wonders on just about everything, eh? Carpetbagger: It can do most anything. Josey Wales: [spits tobacco juice on the carpetbagger's coat] How is it with stains?
***
Josie Wales: You be Ten Bears? Ten Bears: I am Ten Bears. Josie Wales: I’m Josey Wales. Ten Bears: I have heard. You are the grey rider. You would not make peace with the Bluecoats. You may go in peace. Josie Wales: I reckon not. I got no place else to go. Ten Bears: Then you will die. Josie Wales: I came here to die with you. Or to live with you…I ain’t promising you nothing extra. I’m just giving you life and you’re giving me life. And I’m saying that men can live together without butchering one another. Ten Bears: It’s sad that governments are chiefed by the double tongues. There is iron in your words of death for all Comanche to see, and so there is iron in your words of life. No signed paper can hold the iron. It must come from men. The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life… or death. It shall be life.
Eastwood has called The Outlaw Josey Wales an anti-war film. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, he said:
“As for Josey Wales, I saw the parallels to the modern day at that time. Everybody gets tired of it, but it never ends. A war is a horrible thing, but it’s also a unifier of countries. . . . Man becomes his most creative during war. Look at the amount of weaponry that was made in four short years of World War II—the amount of ships and guns and tanks and inventions and planes and P-38s and P-51s, and just the urgency and the camaraderie, and the unifying. But that’s kind of a sad statement on mankind, if that’s what it takes.”
Born Myra Belle Shirley, February 5, 1848, on a farm outside of Carthage, MO, the legendary Belle Starr came into the world a farm girl and left it as a famous–or infamous–outlaw. Her father was a slaveholder who sympathized with the south, her mother was of the Hatfield clan, and Belle grew up with Cole Younger and several of Quantrill’s Raiders.
By 1864, after Carthage was burned by Union troops, the family moved to Scyene, Texas, a small town near Dallas. There, in July of 1866, the Younger brothers and Jesse James, all Missouri outlaws who rode with Quantrill, used her family’s home to hideout from the law.
That same year her older brother John “Bud” Shirley, who fought for the Confederacy with William C. Quantrill’s guerillas, was killed by Union troops in Sarcoxie, Mo. Some say this is the reason Belle took to crime – she went hunting for the Union officer who shot her brother and, though she never found him, she seems to have liked carrying a gun and stirring up trouble.
In 1866, Belle married James C. “Jim” Reed, a former guerilla whom she had known since her childhood in Carthage and had two children: Rosie Lee “Pearl” (who was later rumored to be Cole Younger’s child) in 1868; and James Edwin “Ed” in 1871. While Jim initially tried his hand at farming, he soon grew restless and fell in with the Starr clan, a Cherokee Indian family notorious for whiskey, cattle, and horse thievery, as well as his wife’s old friends the James and Younger gangs.
When her husband and cohorts robbed Watt Grayson, a wealthy Creek Indian farmer of $30,000 in gold, Belle was accused as an accomplice. Though there was no proof, she fled back to her family in Scyene. Stories are told that she would ride into Dallas wearing buckskins and moccasins or tight black jackets, black velvet skirts, high-topped boots, a man’s Stetson hat with an ostrich plume, and twin holstered pistols, and spend her time in saloons, drinking and gambling at dice, cards, and roulette. At times she would ride her horse through the streets shooting off her pistols
On Aug. 6, 1874, the law caught up with Jim Reed near Paris, Texas. He was shot to death trying to escape from custody.
The young widow of an outlaw, Belle left her children with relatives and returned to Oklahoma Indian Territory and the Starr clan. Belle proved herself good at organizing, planning and fencing for the rustlers, horse thieves and bootleggers. Belle’s enterprises provided her with more than enough money to use bribery to free her cohorts from the law whenever they were caught. And, if she couldn’t buy off the lawmen, she was known to seduce them into looking the other way.
“Next to a fine horse, I admire a fine pistol.”
Judge Isaac C. Parker, a.k.a., “The Hanging Judge,” of Fort Smith, Arkansas, became obsessed with bringing Belle Starr to justice, but she eluded him at every turn. Charges never seemed to stick, and if he managed to get her into his courtroom, she would appeal to friends in high places and receive a full pardon.
In 1880, at the age of 32, Belle fell in love with Sam Starr, the handsome 20-year-old son of the clan leader, and asked him to marry her. Old Tom disapproved, but Belle out-talked him and ended up with young Sam as her husband.
“After a more adventurous life than generally falls to the lot of woman, I settled permanently in the Indian Territory, selecting a place of picturesque beauty on the Canadian River. There, far from society, I hoped to pass the remainder of my life in peace and quietude. So long had I been estranged from the society of women, whom I thoroughly detest, that I thought I would find it irksome to live in their midst. So, I selected a place that but few have ever had the gratification of gossiping around…” Belle Starr
(June 7, 1886, Dallas Morning News, p. 4, col. 5-6)
Belle Starr’s ride came to a violent end on February 3, 1889, two days short of her forty-first birthday, when she was shot in the back while riding from the general store to her ranch near Eufaula, Oklahoma. Suspects included Edgar Watson, a fugitive with whom Belle had been feuding over the land he was renting from her, Jim July, her Cherokee lover, with whom she had recently had a quarrel, and her son Ed, with whom she had a rather strained relationship. The murderer of Belle Starr was never caught.
Belle was buried on her ranch. A marble headstone was erected over her grave on which was engraved a bell, her horse, a star and this epitaph written by her daughter Pearl:
“Shed not for her the bitter tear,
Nor give the heart to vain regret;
‘Tis but the casket that lies here,
The gem that filled it sparkles yet.”
“Doffing his saloon apron, the grizzled barkeep dons a dirty alpaca coat, sits himself down behind the bar, draws a pistol and bangs for silence using the butt as a gavel. “Order, by Gobs! This honorable court is now in session, and if any galoot wants a snort before we start, let him step up to the bar and name his pizen.” The good judge had never seen the inside of a law school. His only law book was the 1879 Revised Statutes of Texas. But the self-styled “Law West of the Pecos” knew how to hold court. There, in his Jersey Lilly saloon in the minuscule West Texas town of Langtry, Roy Bean doled out drinks and his own brand of justice for more than 20 years.” -Smithsonian Magazine June 1998
The above statements and excerpts give you an idea why “Hanging Judge” Roy Bean is such an enduring character in the history of the old west. Born Phantly Bean, in Mason County, Kentucky, in 1825, Roy Bean has pretty much done it all. He ran a blockade during the Civil War hauling cotton from San Antonio to British ships off the coast. He helped run a shop in Chihuahua, Mexico with his older brother, Sam, until he caused too much trouble. Next he went to live with his oldest brother, Joshua, who was mayor of San Diego. Roy was jailed for dueling, broke out, and followed his brother to San Gabriel. He inherited Joshua’s saloon but moved on again in 1857 or 1858 to escape being hanged. Next he went to Mesilla, New Mexico, where Sam made him a partner in a saloon there. Things went well until the Civil War reached them. A military life wasn’t for Roy – he moved to San Antonio, where he became famous for “circumventing creditors, business rivals, and the law.”
In 1882, Bean left his wife of sixteen years, and their four children, to move with the railroad grading camps to Vinegaroon, a tent city near the Pecos River. According to the Texas State Historical Association’s The Handbook of Texas Online: “Crime was rife at the end of the track; it was often said, “West of the Pecos there is no law; west of El Paso, there is no God.” To cope with the lawless element the Texas Rangersqv were called in, and they needed a resident justice of the peace in order to eliminate the 400-mile round trip to deliver prisoners to the county seat at Fort Stockton. The commissioners of Pecos County officially appointed Roy Bean justice on August 2, 1882. He retained the post, with interruptions in 1886 and 1896, when he was voted out, until he retired voluntarily in 1902.” http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fbe08
Bean didn’t stay in Vinegaroon. When the railroad moved west, Bean packed up his courtroom and saloon and moved 70 miles to Strawbridge, and a new tent city.
According to legend, Bean named the town after the British actress Emilie Charlotte (Lillie) Langtry, with whom Bean had fallen in love after seeing her picture. Bean even named his saloon The Jersey Lilly, in Miss Langtry’s honor. The truth: railroad records indicate that the town was named for George Langtry, a railroad construction foreman. [I found the photo to the left on tworobins.com]
But Bean was definitely the “law” in the town. Though he’d had no formal schooling in law, and only owned one law book, the 1879 edition of the “Revised Statutes of Texas”, he appointed himself Justice of the Peace and held court at his bar and passed down judgments until 1902. Although only district courts in Texas were legally allowed to grant divorces, Bean did it anyway–as long as the person had $10. He charged $5 for a wedding and sent the happily married couples on their way intoning “and may God have mercy on your souls.” None of the fines he collected were sent to the state.
Again from The Handbook of Texas Online: “Bean died in his saloon on March 16, 1903, of lung and heart ailments and was buried in the Del Rio cemetery. His shrewdness, audacity, unscrupulousness, and humor, aided by his knack for self-dramatization, made him an enduring part of American folklore.”
Today, a recreation of The Jersey Lilly Saloon and Courtroom adjoins a Visitor’s Center in Langtry, Texas.
A couple days a month, I’m a muckraker at the local horse rescue in the foothills here in Central California. Each critter has his/her own story, always heartrending and inspiring both. Recently, a mommy horse from Nevada allegedly rescued from a slaughterhouse gave birth to a little colt at the comfortable, lovely sanctuary.
Although I’ll feature more of “our” horses in a future blog, I couldn’t resist showing you baby Jasper and his mama. And the rescue of horses brought to mind something I’d seen on a History Channel program long ago, about a woman fighting to preserve and protect the wild horses and burros on the American plains. I couldn’t remember the rescuer’s name. Mustang Sally stuck in my mind. But researching her, I found out she was “Wild Horse Annie”, otherwise known as Velma Johnston.
Truth is, the moniker “Wild Horse Annie” was given to her as a pejorative by men who thought her cause amusing, if not silly. But she wore it as a badge of courage.
Born in Washoe, Nevada, in 1912, Velma Bronn grew up on her parents’ “Lazy Double Heart Ranch”. Here she learned all about the humane treatment of horses and training them by gentle methods. A childhood bout of polio had her in a body cast for six months and left her with some disfigurements that caused cruelty from her schoolmates. This led her to concentrate on studies and the animals in her life.
After her marriage to Charles Johnston, she and her husband took over the operation of her family ranch, later turning it into a “dude” ranch for children. And Velma took a job as a secretary for an insurance company.
At this time, no humane laws protected the herds of wild horses descended from the horses and burros left behind by explorers, conquistadors, miners, and pioneers. Most ended up slaughtered for pet foods, and the capture methods were horrific. Hard to write, but many were chased by airplanes or trucks until they collapsed from exhaustion, nostrils then wired shut, necks tied to truck tires while the vehicle continued its chase. After that horror, animals were packed so tightly in truck beds they couldn’t move, or fell and were trampled.
Velma was to write that she knew airplanes were used to capture the mustangs, but the practice didn’t touch her directly until 1950, when her ignorance was jarred. While driving to work one day, she watched blood dripping from the truck in front of her and followed it to a rendering plant. Outraged and sickened by what she saw, especially the suffering and death of a year-old foal, Velma vowed to do something to keep this horror from happening again.
Her efforts got her Nevada county to pass a ban on the aircraft capture in 1952, and to pass laws that prevented round up by vehicles on private property. Nonetheless, federal lands were exempt…and 80% of Nevada was federal land. But Velma continued her fight. On 8 September 1959, her efforts resulted in the federal law prohibiting the hunting and capture of horses on state land. Public Law 86-234 became known as the Wild Horse Annie Act.
In 1971, under Velma’s influence, Congress unanimously passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, which banned capture, injury or disturbances of wild horses and burros, and for their transfer to suitable areas when populations became too large.
Before her death from cancer in 1977 at age 65, Velma had been featured in Time magazine, and is said to have inspired Marilyn Monroe’s’ character in Arthur Miller’s 1961 Western, The Misfits. Appearing as herself, Velma starred alongside Lloyd Bridges and Dina Merrill in the 1973 Western, Running Wild.
Of course there are still “gathers” (round-ups) and controversy, mismanagement and claims of mistreatment, but that’s something for another blog, another day.
For today, I just loved learning about another strong Woman of the West.
There’s a town just a short distance from where I live in West Texas called Hale Center. It’s the home of an early rancher by the name of James Franklin Norfleet. He has such an amazing story that I had to share it with you.
James was born in 1865 to a Texas Ranger father and a mother who would go on to birth five more children. At age 14, James joined a buffalo hunt that brought him to this part of the country. After that he worked as a cowboy and drover for various ranches until he could make enough money to start his own ranch. When he was 29, he fell head-over-heels in love and married Mattie Eliza Hudgins. They had four children of which only two lived to adulthood.
One day on a business venture to Fort Worth, Texas in 1919, Norfleet ran into a group of scam artists who took him for $45,000 and promptly left the country.
Mattie told James to “Go get those miserable crooks and make them pay. But bring them in alive. Any man can kill but it’s a brave man who can capture the criminals and bring them to justice.” She told him she’d manage the ranch and keep him in expense money.
So that’s exactly what James set out to do. Using his expert tracking skills, he began a one-man manhunt.
He caught up to three of the swindlers in Los Angeles within a few weeks. He located another one in Salt Lake City and two more in Georgia. At one point, one of the men turned himself in because he couldn’t take being hunted any longer.
In all he spent five years and $75,000 and traveled 30,000 miles across two continents chasing the scam artists. He single-handedly captured and turned them in to the authorities without any assistance from the federal government.
His fame quickly spread and he was besieged with requests to hunt down other criminals. And so he began an unlikely career in law enforcement. Between 1919 and 1935, he brought in over 100 wanted men. And, although he was quick on the draw and dead shot with a pistol, he never killed anyone.
James Norfleet earned the nickname “Little Tiger” because of his short stature and uncanny ability to stalk a fugitive. He never lost a fresh trail. The FBI awarded him a special certificate for his services. Pretty good for an old cowboy.
His exploits became known far and wide. He was the subject of several magazine articles and a full-length book that was published in 1924. And actor Wallace Berry once portrayed him in a radio drama. The country desperately needed a hero and Norfleet fit the bill.
His ranch near Hale Center took a hit though with him being gone so long and he wound up having to sell it. James and Mattie lived quietly the rest of their days on a small farm. I’m sure they spent many an hour reliving James’s exciting adventures. James died at the age of 102 and Mattie lived to 101.
This true story just proves that it doesn’t pay to mess with one determined cowboy.
You can preorder our new anthology that releases July 1st through Amazon or Barnes and Noble!
A Bowie knife is a style of fixed-blade knife first popularized by Colonel James “Jim” Bowie in the early 19th Century.
Much like the owner with whom this blade is synonymous, the “Bowie” knife is shrouded in myths, legends and questionable facts. Even the experts are still arguing over what is truth and what is legend.
Let’s start with what the experts know: A blacksmith named James Black from Washington, Arkansas, was well-known for his guardless “coffin” knife, meaning the handle is shaped like a coffin and there is no guard to keep the wielders hand from slipping onto the blade.
From here, the truth gets a little murky.
One version of the creation of the famous knife is that Rezin Bowie commissioned the knife from blacksmith Jesse Cleft of Avoyelles Parrish, Louisiana.
Another has Jim’s brother, John, claiming the knife was made by a blacksmith named Snowden.
The favored version of the story is that Jim Bowie went to Black in 1830 with a wooden mock-up of the knife he wanted. Black made that knife and another one with several improvements. When Bowie returned for his knife, Black offered him his choice. Bowie took the improved model.
“It was said that a Bowie had to be sharp enough to use as a razor, heavy enough to use as a hatchet, long enough to use as a sword and broad enough to use as a paddle.”
The historical Bowie knife had a blade of at least 6 inches in length, some reaching 12 inches or more, with a relatively broad blade that was an inch and a half to two inches wide. Bowie knives often had an upper guard that bent forward at an angle (called an S-guard) intended to catch an opponent’s blade or provide protection to the owner’s hand.
The moniker “Bowie Knife” seems to have grown from the account of an attempted murder of Bowie. In Mississippi in 1827, in what became known as the “Sandbar Duel,” Jim Bowie was attacked by three men on the orders of a local sheriff that Bowie had vocally refused to back for re-election. Bowie, using the knife, survived; his attackers did not. Yes, I know this happened before Bowie bought the knife from Black. But keep in mind the historical “Bowie knife” was not a single design, but was a series of knives improved several times by Jim Bowie over the years.
James Black became famous on his own merits; he was and is considered one of the best blade-makers of that time period. Black’s knives were copied by cutlers in Sheffield, England, and sold in America as the “Arkansas Toothpick.”
“The term Arkansas toothpick became synonymous with “bowie knife” for most of the population [of the United States]. Sheffield cutlers thought the addition of this term in particular added value to the knives they made to sell in the United States…” http://www.historicarkansas.org/collections/knives.aspx?id=54
Black’s knives were known to be exceedingly tough, yet flexible, and his technique has not been duplicated. Black kept his technique secret and did all of his work behind a leather curtain. Many claim that Black rediscovered the secret of producing true Damascus steel. [An interesting process, but I’m going to let you research that one on your own. If you want to see some beautiful knives, go to http://www.mountainhollow.net/bowieknives2.htm]
The Bowie knife became the most famous blade in the states, perhaps in the world, following The Alamo. But, as is the way of most things, by the end of the Civil War, the knife gave way to the bayonet, rifle and revolvers for self-defense.
Hollywood launched something of a revival of the knife’s popularity when, in the 1950s, Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie were featured in books and movies.
Here’s some of the links I discovered, if you want to learn more:
Novelist, essayist, bookseller and screenwriter, Larry McMurtry (born 1936) is a man of staggering accomplishments. His twenty-four published novels include The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment and his 945 page masterpiece, LONESOME DOVE.
Chances are you’ve seen the TV mini-series based on the story. Whether you have or not, the 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning book is a thrilling read, offering more depth than the excellent TV version.
A love story and an epic of the frontier, LONESOME DOVE has been called the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness of America. It’s the story of two aging cowboys, former Texas Rangers, who organize a 2,500 mile horse drive from Mexico to Montana. Stealing the herd from a gang of Mexican cattle rustlers, they battle horse thieves, angry Indian tribes and a renegade half breed killer named Blue Duck to reach their new land.
LONESOME DOVE is a gritty, realistic read, filled with sweeping description and pulse-pounding action. But what makes it most memorable is its vivid interweaving of characters. Here are a few:
Gus McCrae, the central character, is lazy, wise and fiercely brave, a man who understands the secret pathways of a woman’s heart. Robert Duvall’s portrayal of Gus in the TV version is unforgettable, probably his greatest role ever.
Captain Woodrow Call, Gus’s best friend, is a man whose self-imposed moral code is so lofty that he refuses to admit his own humanity or acknowledge his illegitimate son. Wonderfully played by Tommy Lee Jones in the TV version.
Newt, Call’s teenaged illegitimate son who grows from boy to man.
Lorena, the beautiful, strangely innocent prostitute who joins the trek to find a new life.
Jake Spoon, ex-ranger and card sharp, Lorena’s ne’er-do-well lover.
Clara, Gus’s tough, womanly first love, now married to a rancher.
July Johnson, a good-hearted settler in search of his runaway wife and baby.
Deetz, former slave, soldier and master horseman.
Blue Duck, half-breed Comanche, and the meanest, ugliest, most evil villain to stalk the pages of a book.
LONESOME DOVE is not a story for the faint-hearted. People die, most of them in gruesome, graphic ways. But if you want to completely immerse yourself in a sweeping epic of the American West, I have three words for you. Read this book.
Jack Schaefer’s book, Shane, has been classified in many sub-genres, but to me, it will always remain my favorite western romance.
Shane
Romance? Shane?
This story cannot have a truly happy-ever-after ending for all the principal characters, so it normally wouldn’t make it to my “Top Ten” list for that very reason. But the story itself is so compelling, so riveting, that there is no choice once you’ve read page one—you are going to finish it. And it’s not just a story about a very odd love triangle, but also about Shane discovering that he is worthy, and a good person, despite what he’s done in his past.
Shane is the perfect hero—a drifter, a loner, and no one knows why. He plans to keep it that way. If only his pesky conscience didn’t get in the way, he might have stopped briefly at the Starrett’s homestead, then moved on.
But from the beginning of the book, we know there is something different about Shane. The story is told through the eyes of Bob Starrett, the young son of Joe and Marion. Bob is about ten years old, and his account of the people and action that takes place are colored with the wonderment and naivete of a child who will be well on his way to becoming a young man before the story is over.
The book starts with tension, as Bob is watching the stranger, Shane, ride in. Shane comes to a fork in the road. One way leads down toward Luke Fletcher’s, the cattle baron who is trying to force the homesteaders out of the valley. The other branch of the fork leads toward the Starretts, the homesteaders who will ultimately force Fletcher’s hand. Shane chooses that path, toward the Starretts, and the die is cast.
He would have looked frail alongside father’s square, solid bulk. But even I could read the endurance in the lines of that dark figure and the quiet power in his effortless, unthinking adjustment to every movement of the tired horse.
He was clean-shaven and his face was lean and hard and burned from high forehead to firm, tapering chin. His eyes seemed hooded in the shadow of the hat’s brim. He came closer and I could see that this was because the brows were drawn into a frown of fixed and habitual alertness. Beneath them the eyes were endlessly searching from side to side and forward, checking off every item in view, missing nothing. As I noticed this, a sudden chill, and I could not have told why, struck through me there in the warm and open sun.
In a nutshell, Shane drifts into the Wyoming valley, and is befriended by the Starretts. Once there, he is quickly made aware of the brewing trouble between the homesteaders and the powerful local cattle baron, Luke Fletcher, who is set on running them all out of the valley. Shane is firmly committed to helping Joe Starrett and the homesteaders who want to stay. Fletcher’s men get into a fistfight with Shane and Joe in the general store, and Fletcher vows his men will kill the next time Joe or Shane come back into town.
Fletcher hires Stark Wilson, a well-known gunhawk, who kills one of the homesteaders that stands up to him. Joe Starrett feels it is his duty, since he convinced the others to stay, to go kill Fletcher and Wilson.
Shane knocks Joe out, knowing that, though Joe’s heart is in the right place, he’s no match for a hired gun like Wilson. There’s only one man who is—Shane himself, and that’s going to set him back on the path he’s so desperately trying to escape.
Shane rides into town and Bob follows him, witnessing the entire battle. Shane faces Wilson down first, and then Fletcher. Shane turns to leave and Bob warns him of another man, who Shane also kills. But Shane doesn’t escape unscathed—Wilson has wounded him in the earlier gunplay.
Shane rides out of town, and though Bob wishes so much that Shane could stay, he understands why he can’t. No. Bob does not utter one of the most famous lines in cinema history—“Shane! Come back!” There’s good reason for this. In the book, Bob’s growth is shown because of what he learns from Shane. To call him back would negate that growth process.
He describes Shane throughout the book, and in many ways, with a child’s intuition, understands innately that Shane is a good man and will do the right thing, which is proven out time and again. So, he also realizes that there is no place for Shane there in the valley, now that the trouble has been handled.
Bob witnesses the conversation between his mother and Shane, as well, where so much is said—and not said. It’s one of the major turning points in the book, though Bob, in his telling of it, doesn’t realize it—but the reader is painfully aware of it. If Shane really is a good man, he will have no recourse but to leave.
This happens as the novel is drawing to a close, when Marian, Bob’s mother, asks Shane if he’s going after Wilson just for her. He has knocked her husband out to keep him from going after the gunman.
Shane hesitated for a long, long moment. “No, Marian.” His gaze seemed to widen and encompass us all, mother and the still figure of father huddled on a chair by the window and somehow the room and the house and the whole place. Then he was looking only at mother and she was all he could see.
“No, Marian. Could I separate you in my mind and afterwards be a man?”
Shane was Jack Schaefer’s debut novel, published in 1949. It was honored in 1985 by the Western Writers of America as the best Western novel ever written—beating out other works such as Owen Wister’s The Virginian, Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage, and Louis L’Amour’s Hondo.
In 1963, Schaefer wrote Monte Walsh, a book that chronicles the passing of the Old West and the lifestyle of the American cowboy.
Though Schaefer never deliberately wrote for young adults, many of his works have become increasingly popular among younger readers. Universal themes such as the transformation and changes of growing up, the life lessons learned, and rites of passage from childhood to becoming a young adult in his writing have been responsible for the upswing in popularity with this age group.
Though I consider Shane a romance novel, it’s a very different and memorable love triangle because of the unshakable honor of the three characters. I love the subtlety that Schaefer is such a master of, and the way he has Bob describing the action, seeing everything, but with the eyes of a child. If you haven’t read Shane, I highly recommend it—at less than 200 pages, it’s a quick, easy read, and unforgettable.
A gun is a tool, Marian; no better or no worse than any other tool: an axe, a shovel or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remember that. (Shane to Marian)
A man is what he is, Bob, and there’s no breaking the mold. I’ve tried that and I’ve lost. But I reckon it was in the cards from the moment I saw a freckled kid on a rail up the road there and a real man behind him, the kind that could back him for the chance another kid never had. (Shane to Bob)
During our recent vacation to Lake Tahoe, hubby and I took a DUKW tour of the Lake…both on land and in water. You see, “duck” vehicles are the refurbished amphibious vehicles used on D-Day now used as tourist transport on major waterways.
