Joyce Henderson is a multi-published author who writes Native American Romance set in Central Texas where she was born. Joyce writes “what she knows,” horses and ranching, and she loves researching Indian lore. Her work has finaled in national contests: National Readers’ Choice Award, Georgia Romance Writers Maggie, and several others. During her 25-year writing career, she’s mentored a half-dozen or more writers who have gone on to publication.

And she worked for local newspapers for several years writing a by-lined column.

Married forever, she has three children and three grandkids, plus six step-grandkids and six step-great-grandchildren.

Yeehaw, I’m back to kick up my heels at the Junction! It’s a right pretty place I love to visit.

Now, to get on with why I’m here…

I’m asked over and over by readers and other writers: Which one of your heroes is your favorite?

The short answer is: The one I’m presently writing.

Upon donning my thinking cap, I realize there’s a much deeper, more complex reason for that answer.

I suppose it has to do with how I write in the first place. First, if you’re a writer let me say for the umpteenth time when writers have been faced with “rules,” there’s no right or wrong way when it comes to how one devises prose. We all approach this art form differently. And I believe, oft times to my detriment, those so-called rules are made to be broken. LOL

I consider myself a visual writer. By that I mean, more often than not I “see” entire scenes in my mind, and then I see people acting, reacting within those scenes. What that scene depicts is a visual of the era and location where my entire story will be set and expanded upon. Actually, I use scenes almost like another character.

While I’m writing a story, people pop into scenes, so… I must visualize many individuals, give each a tick or trait that make each one stand out from others. For me, that’s one of the fun parts of writing. I usually write a ton of secondary people into my stories, but I have to caution myself as I conjure these characters…don’t let them take over. All my stories are he-and-she romances, secondary characters must have a purpose, but remember who each one is: secondary. And since my stories are romances, they must end with HEA, happily ever after.

Look with me at the Prologue and opening scene of my very first published book, Walks in Shadow, and the visual I saw before I typed the first word…

It’s dark, with light rain at the tail end of a storm. A lone man gazes into the distance, stands beneath trees, limbs bending and swaying overhead. He wears a Stetson hat, rain drips before his eyes and cascades off the brim down his back . His arms hold a bulge beneath his yellow slicker. That’s my basic visual.

You’ve probably heard the admonition directed at writers, “Write what you know.”

Most of my Native American historical stories are set in and around the town where I was born in Central Texas. While I knew dirt when it was still a rock, honestly, I wasn’t around in the year in which this story is set, 1860. LOL The oaks my hero stands beneath are like those which used to line the dirt road leading to my great-grandmother’s old homestead. I know the place.

Okay, back to my scene… (This is wheels grinding in my pea brain. LOL) I ask myself, what’s this guy doing there? What’s riveted his attention? What’s hidden beneath the slicker that he’s holding against his chest? I enlarge my visual.

Across a clearing is a two-story house… (My great-grandma’s place was one story.)  There’s a porch the width of the house (Grandma’s was half the width), one central door with a window each side from which light spills. Nearby, a barn, and an attached lean-to, a chicken coop.

Switch back to the man…He looks down, separates the coat and stares into the face of a sleeping child. From his thoughts I begin to learn who he is and why he’s there. He’s anguished because he’s about to abandon this boy-child on the porch. But why? Because…he promised his adopted sister on her deathbed he would take her…half-breed son to be raised in the white man’s world.

Why would she ask that of him? Let me think…. Because…this guy is a white man who was captured while a toddler and raised Comanche. He’s the logical one to honor his sister’s wish, return to his roots, but…he’s unsure if he can be a white man again, or if he really wants to.

Little Spring is the product of his sister’s rape by a white man. Still, why is this guy now leaving the child here? Because…the white man who helped his sister lives in this house. It’s super hard to leave Little Spring, but he whispers a promise. One day he will return for the boy.

Let’s see. I already like this guy because…no matter how difficult it is and despite his love for the boy, he’ll honor his sister’s dying wish. This is the basic premise for my hero. Now what’s his name? Light bulb flash. He travels at night, remains in the shadows so…Walks in Shadow is born!

The prologue ends with Walks in Shadow’s promise, chapter one begins with the heroine, and that  produces another visual in my mind. The terrain is rolling, oaks dotted here and yon. A black stallion stands on a distant hill, silhouetted against a cerulean sky.

What does that have to do with anything? The first lines of chapter one will introduce the heroine, and ultimately clue-in the reader to what that visual is and why the horse is important.

Samantha Timberlake wanted him the first time she saw him. The yearning was so intense, so primal, it took her breath. She was twenty-five years old, and though she loved her father, Aunt Mattie and Little Guy fiercely, she’d never experienced a desire so strong—until now.

He’d stood on a hill, wild, proud, fierce, as beautiful as Texas was brutal. Then he disappeared from view.

I’ve led the reader to believe she’s seeing Walks in Shadow. Not until the bottom of the page does the reader discover she’s seeing and yearning for a black stallion. And that gets my thoughts to grinding again…make Walks in Shadow a horse-whisperer-style trainer.

When Samantha meets Walks in Shadow, it’s five years from when he left Little Spring on this very ranch. Walks in Shadow has more or less transformed himself into a white man, he speaks very precise English that he learned during this time, and his name is now Holden Walker.

Why that name? Walker, of course, is a play on his Indian name, but why Holden? Because…it’s a name he vaguely remembers from when he was a toddler.

When Walks in Shadow recognizes Guy as Little Spring and realizes he can’t take the boy from this place, from these people who now consider him son and brother, his heart breaks a little.

In order to remain close to the child, he offers to train the stallion, and not break the horse’s spirit in the process like, to his mind, the white man’s sometimes brutal methods.

From Samantha’s POV I now begin to see Walks in Shadow/Holden Walker more clearly. He’s a hunk! Did you doubt it? Well, hey, this is a romance. LOL Tall, dark hair. I often see Benjamin Bratt as my hero in these stories. 

Although, when writing most of my Native American heroes, I picture Adam Beach’s hair and how he wears a feather.

As the story unfolds in my mind, I learn of the length’s Walks in Shadow has gone in an effort to honor his dead sister’s final request, to make himself presentable as a white man. While seeing these scenes, I learn how gentle the man really is. What he abhorred about the Comanche, what he loved about them, how undecided he is about making a life forever in the white man’s world.

He’s immeasurably sad when he knows the boy has grown up without learning about his Indian people. Walks in Shadow’s heart breaks just a little when he regrets not teaching Little Spring to use the small bow and arrows he made just for him; the gift he still carries in his belongings. Ah, yes…the gift conjures another scene that I make notes about for later use.

And in each scenario, I like what I see when Holden handles horses. I like how he helps Guy through the child’s first brush with the death of a loved one. I like how he helps a soiled dove in her time of need. I like how he defends Samantha and her beloved Timberoaks from the obnoxious neighbor and his overbearing father. Each of these “likes” occur as I conjure scenes for each one.

With each revelation, I fall a little more in love with him. I guess that’s why I believe my favorite hero is the one I’m writing.

I’m having fun discovering another Native American hero. While my Indians rarely smile, this hunk is certainly how I picture my new guy. Meet Comanche Duane Loken.   That’s probably a white shepherd he’s holding, but a wolf does play a prominent in this story.

This time the hero is baffled by a twenty-first century heroine who drops into his life, in Texas. i.e: Can a woman of today seize her destiny—to love a Comanche warrior?in the year 1860?

This story takes me into a new sub-genre of writing: time travel. Writing is never easy, but I make it doubly hard for myself when I fly off into the mist in a sub-genre foreign to my prior writing knowledge. Still, this idea came about when I pictured my heroine waking in a gully. It takes a while to realize she’s no longer in the twenty-first century.

My mind spins, and once again I begin to fall in love with a hero as he comes to life in my head; as I picture scenes and conjure a story around two protagonists. For a romance writer, there’s nothing better.

May I again thank you for having me at the Junction. And to those visiting today, I wish writers productive writing…and happy reading to everyone!

Take a look at my latest release from The Wild Rose Press. It’s historical and Western themed, but it’s set in Southern California where I ranched for 20 years. In fact, Garrett Montez’s ranch is patterned after the Mexican Landgrant on which my ranch occupied a little corner.

Southern California, 1898: Scarred by his father’s

rejection, Garrett Montez prefers a life of solitude on

the prosperous ranch he’s built on land bequeathed

him by his grandfather. When his housekeeper quits,

he is desperate to find another, but not the beautiful

woman with gentle eyes and a sweet smile who

arrives on his doorstep. Neither his ranch nor his heart

needs the kind of trouble she could cause. With

nowhere to go, Neely O’Conner must find employment,

but handsome and rugged Garrett Montez

rejects her the minute he lays eyes on her. More

determined than ever, she offers to work for a month

without pay, hoping time will change his mind. Does

a mysterious woman hold the key to Garrett’s love, or

can Neely crack through his iron-encased heart

and…Promise the Moon?

Leave a comment and Joyce will include your name in a drawing to receive a free pdf of Promise the Moon. Return to the Junction tomorrow to see if you’re the lucky winner!

Joyce loves to hear from her fans @: www.joycehendersonauthor.com

Wait, weren’t Indans and Cowboys opposed to each other?

Well, yes and no!

Good Morning!

Perhaps it was inescapable that Indians would become cowboys.  The way of life, out on the Plains and in the open air.  It was too much like the old way of life.  There’s a book entitled the same as my title here — When Indians Became Cowboys by Peter Iverson.  In this book Iverson documents what became a very natural transition from warrior to cattleman and horseman.  There’s also another book source:  Legends of our Times — Native Cowboy Life by Morgan Baillargeon and Leslie Tepper.

It really started in the 1600′s when first horses, then sheep and cattle found their way onto the plains.  But we won’t go that far back.

Now let me say here that cattle ranching is usually a story told in one color — white (this is from the book, When Indians Became Cowboys  but it’s pretty true, isn’t it?).  I guess to really go back to what started the whole thing, we’d have to go back to 1887 and the allotment act (also known as the very horrific Dawes Act).  The Allotment Act pretended to be the “friend” of the Indian, when in actual fact, it ushered in the beginning of the end of centuries old Native American Culture, the culture that met the first white man on this, Turtle Island (America).  It is responsible all on its own of dividing families and  causing the loss of one’s own culture and also of  the massive stealing of Indian land — all in the name of “doing good,” or “doing what’s best for you.”  Gosh, that sounds awfully familiar.  Scary.

Put as simply as I can, the Dawes Act gave every Indian family a 160 acre piece of land.  But it gave it to individuals and families.  Sounds good doesn’t it?  What could go wrong?

  Well, checkerboarded inbetween Indian land was the same or similar parcel of land that was to be sold to white ranchers.  Thus, native society, which had always thrived around the tribe and friends being close, was  cut up by the intervention of land that was to be sold to whites  (of course the land was supposed to be the Indians’ by treaty, but hey, when it means profit, I guess one’s personal ethics can be scrapped?).  Sigh…  Anyway, families (extended families) were lost because of mere distance.  It was thought that the Indians would “learn” from the whites surrounding them.  Of course the wordage of the act put it differently — that the Indians were learn from their “betters.”  In truth, there were people who truly believed this was for the best, and they for the most were good people.   Now, it’s true that the Indians did learn, but it wasn’t always pretty, for much of what they learned was as an observer of actions on the part of others that were unconscionable to say the least.

Okay, I could go on and on siting example after example, and telling you about how the land that was affected by the Dawes Act was the land that was the Indian’s best.  But we won’t go there.  Not now.  Instead, let’s have a look at how and when Indians became cowboys.

In the late 1880′s reservation life had little to offer.  How was one to prove one was a man if he couldn’t go on raids, capture horses or hunt as he had always done?  Ah, you’re right.  Cattle ranching fit the bill.  Not only did it allow an outdoor lifestyle, which was essential — it was free and gave the young man a similar sort of environment to that which he had always loved.  Some men raised horses.  Some raised cattle.  Not only did this lifestyle fit the young man’s temperament, it allowed him to carry on his traditions much the same as he had always done — being able to give things away to relatives and friends, and to make a name for himself within the community.  It also allowed the family to draw close together again.

There were several Indian cowboys and ranchers toward the end of the 19th century.   There was Tom Three Persons, from Alberta Canada.  Not only was he a legendary and world rodeo champion, he was also a very prosperous rancher.  He was said to own at one time 500 head of cattle and just as many horses.  He was also a very handsome man. 

Jackson Sundown was Nez Perce and was probably the first Indian cowboy to become the world bucking champion.  The year was 1916.  An interesting part of his life was that he was born in and around 1860 and was with the Nez Perce in their wars in 1877 — he was a teenager.  Her was part of the tribe that was a victim in the massacre at the Battle of Big Hole.  He survived the massacre by hiding under buffalo robes in his tepee until the tepee was set afire.  He then escaped by clinging to the side of his horse — out of sight of the soldiers.  He sought refuge in Sitting Bull’s camp in Canada.  Interestingly Jackson was in his 40′s when he began competing in rodeo.  He was so good that other men refused to ride against him.

Who else would be better suited for this kind of lifestyle?  There were many stars of the rodeo, not to mention their success as ranchers.  There was Barney Old Coyote Sr. — a very handsome man.  There was Todd Buffalo and many, many more.  As a matter of fact, my introduction into Lakota life included the rodeo and one of its bright stars.  And today, most Northern and Southern Plains Indians carry on the tradition of ranching and rodeoing.  Just go to the reservation for a pow-wow.  The rodeo is as much of an attraction as the pow-wow itself.

I hope I’ve raised your interest here in Indian cowboys.  It was a life that they were well suited to — a life that gave the young man standing in his community, a free life-style and the opportunity to do as his ancestors had always done.

Ah, they were…they are handsome men.  Come on in and tell me what you think about this.  Did you know this about Indians and about ranching and rodeoing?  Have you ever been to an Indian rodeo?  On the Navajo reservation I once had to sing (without knowing they were going to ask me) the National Anthem.  I loved every minute of that rodeo.  So come on in and let’s chat.

Good Morning!

Going along with a similar message from my last post, I thought we might continue on in the same vein as we did a couple of weeks ago — survival.  With droughts in the south and midwest, flooding in our farmlands and northern states and with grain elevators gradually reduced to only about 3 months of food supply, it takes only a little foresight to see that we may be in for a long haul in the near future.  To that end, I thought we might revisit some survival tactics.  I’ll be giving away, by the way, a book on survival tactics (well sort of survival tactics) — LONG ARROW’S PRIDE to some lucky blogger.  So be sure to come in and leave a message.  (Note, this offer applies to the greater 50 States and to Canada only.)

In the old days, the Indians lived off the land and rarely starved.  It wasn’t until reservation days that starvation became a real threat.  Before that time, the Indians knew what plants to look for and where to look, what animals to kill, how to kill them for food, how to jerky the meat and how to survive and live off the land.  In truth, before the last World War, most Americas were living on farms and so the Depression (I never call it the Great Depression, as I think of Great things as good things) — but the collaspe of the economy during the Depression – bad as it was, wasn’t as bad as it might be in our future because most people still lived on farms back then and knew how to grow their own food.  So, as I used to learn in the Girl Scouts, let me ask you this.  How prepared are you for a collapse if it were to come upon us?

Heaven forbid it ever happen.  But as my mother used to say, “You prepare for the worst and enjoy those things you stored when it doesn’t happen.”  So let’s go over a few things that might come in handy to have, just in case, okay?

1)  Food — do you have a minimum of a 1 year supply for all members of your family on hand.  These are storeable items like grains, dried fruits, canned organic veggies, nuts, baking soda, fish-liver oil, baking powder, and anything else that you can thing of to store — meat, etc.  Get them for long storage — again that’s minimum 1 year supply for every member of your family and any member of your family that in a catastrophe might come home.  : )

2)  Medical supplies.  You can’t have enough medical supplies.  Bandages, bandaids, aspirin, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, and any other medicine that you need.  For me, because I don’t take drugs, this means a year’s supply minimum of vitamins and minerals, as well as any herbs needed for medical emergencies.  And remember this is a 1 year supply for every member of your family — and those who might join you later on.

3)  Seeds — organic seeds, if you please.  The reason for heirloom, organic seeds is that the new Monsanto seeds and even the more common hybrid seeds don’t produce seeds for replanting — and keeping seeds from year to year is vital.  Even is you live in the city, you can start a garden of some kind.  My husband and I live in the city and instead of growing a lawn, we are now growing a garden.  We are learning also that one needs to LEARN how to garden and how to keep out pests.  So far squirrels and rabbits are benefitting from our new garden.  : )

4)  An herb garden is pretty essential.  From an herb garden you can obtain many medicinal plants — like  Echinacea and Goldenseal, as well as Oregano, sage and other herbs.  And again, even if you live on the city, you can probably start a garden on the roof or on a window seal.  You might even be able to make friends with local farmers who might be able to help you through a tough time, but I would advise you to plant as much as you can for yourself and for your family.

5)  Protection.

Now, while it might be fun to have these two men riding protection for you, probably it is a good idea to have a rifle or a gun of some kind as a form of self and family protection as well as protection of your food stores.  Personally, I think our Founding Fathers were right in guaranteeing the natural God-given right to bear arms.  Every creature will try to defend itself against any who seek to kill it.  For people, this means guns and other means to protect yourself.  After all, criminals and vandals are criminals and vandals because they can’t obey the law — therefore, they will always find a way to get guns.  My huband and I belong to Frontsight, a shooting organization that teaches you not only self-protection and makes sure that you know how to place a good shot, but teaches you when to make that shot and when not to.  But not only is protection important in emergencies — to protect the lives of your family and yourself — guns are important in keeping pests like rabbits and squirrels away from your garden — guns can also bring in fresh game in case of a food shortage.  If you don’t like guns and will absolutely not have one in your household, then I would advise you to learn self-defense — hand-to-hand — and to learn to use a bow and arrow for hunting.

Okay, let’s see.  What have I left out?  There’s something that’s important that I’m not thinking of here.

Oh, yes, a subject that is dear to the pocketbook:

6)  Some sort of cash.  Now what do I mean by cash?  Some say silver or gold with lead to protect that silver or gold.  : )  Some say to invest in the Euro — just in case the dollar falls.  I will say right here and right now that this is not an area that I know much about.  And if there is some kind of castastrophe — heaven forbid — or martial law — double heaven forbid — what might people use as money?  Barter?  Gold?  Silver?  Your guess is as good as mine.  All I know is that you might want to have something on hand to barter with.

Well, now that’s all I can think of right now.  You might be able to think of other things that one might to do be prepared.  In the old days — the days of my grandparents, all families had either a full year’s supply of food on hand and/or a victory garden.  When I was growing up, almost all of my neighbors  had gardens of one kind or another — chicken coops, etc.

How about you?  Can you think of something I’ve forgotten here in order to be prepared for any sort of economical or other kind of emergency?  Do you remember the victory gardens?  Families with supplies of food on hand, just in case?  Or were you a Girl Scout and taught to always be prepared?

I’m not wishing for  this — I hope a cause for this never happens — but just in case…

And don’t forget, I’ll be giving away a free copy of LONE ARROW’S PRIDE to some lucky blogger.  This applies, by the way to the great 50 States and Canada only. 

So come on in and let’s talk about survival.

So what is a thong tree?  I learned the answer to that and other burning questions while researching my latest novel, A Man Like That.  This story is the sequel to Harvest of Dreams and set in the Ozark Mountains of central Missouri just after the Civil War.

No, a thong tree is not a place to hang your underwear.  Thong trees were trail markers left by the Osage Indians and early settlers.  They pointed the way to a trail, salt lick, spring, cave, or other landmark.  The Osage inhabited the Ozarks around Camdenton, near what is now the Lake of The Ozarks, until the 1820’s when a series of treaties finally deprived them of the last of their land.  By the time of my story in 1867, the Osage were long gone, but many thong trees remained.  Amazingly, some can still be seen in the area.

To create the distinctive bent trunk, the Osage would tie a leather strap to a sapling then stake it to the ground to bend the trunk.  Eventually, the leather would rot away, but the tree stayed bent in a very distinctive form.  In A Man Like That I used a thong tree as a marker between my hero, Morgan Bingham’s, land and the property of his relatives and sworn enemies, the McTaggarts.   Circumstances force Morgan to visit his kin several times, and at one point he and the heroine, Jessamine Randall, use the horizontal branch of the thong tree as a resting place on the trail.

In the story, Morgan’s family lives in a type of cabin called a dogtrot.  This architectural style originated in the Appalachian Mountains, the original home of many of the early Ozark settlers.  Traditionally, the dogtrot consisted of two log cabins connected by a breezeway, or “dogtrot”.  It allowed for improved ventilation and provided a shaded area in summer.  In A Man Like That, Morgan’s mother and sister live in one of the one-room cabins, and his brother, sister-in-law and young nephew occupy the other.

I really enjoyed researching the setting for this book because it’s off the beaten path as far as romance novels are concerned, and I’ve always been fascinated by unexplored territory.  My husband’s family is from the area of the Ozarks where I set my story, and I wanted to imagine what life might have been like for them in that time and place.  I invite you to check it out.

Here’s a blurb about the story:

Jessamine Randall, fearless crusader and champion of the downtrodden, is not a woman to be left waiting at the altar.  When her fiancé disappears hours before their wedding, the ever-resourceful Jessy hatches a plan to track him down and bring him back where he belongs.

Morgan Bingham knows he’s no good.  Never has been.  Never will be.  A former outlaw is no fit husband for the only daughter of the town judge, despite her misguided notions.  Besides, after ten long years away from home, it’s time to return to the hills and face his demons.

Ill-prepared, but armed with unshakeable certainty, Jessy follows Morgan to his family’s cabin deep in the Ozark Mountains where she’s sucked into a whirlpool of deep secrets and old hatreds.  While she struggles to bring light and hope into their dark lives, her greatest challenge is Morgan himself.   Can she ever convince him he’s worthy of love?

How do you feel about romance novels in non-traditional settings?  One lucky commenter will receive a copy of A Man Like That.

For an excerpt and buy links, please visit me at www.alisonhenderson.com.

Unfortunately, I fear that this post today may be a sobering one.  There is much going on in the world that points in certain directions, and I thought I would post about something that may possibly concern us all, tempered of course with some wisdom from the American Indian.  I’ll also be giving away a copy of the book, BLACK EAGLE to some lucky blogger today, also.

This is a post about food.  It really doesn’t take any great prediction to see that there could shortly be a problem with our food supply.  If you’ve been paying attention, you probably know that there is a drought in the south (particularly in Texas).  This could be a problem with our food supply.  Then there’s the flooding of our “bread basket,” the mid-West.  Not all of the land has been flooded, of course, but enough to realize there might be a problem.  Then there’s the fact that although America used to have food reserves for approximately five years, these reserves (grain elevators, etc) have been drained, leaving maybe about 3 months reserves (this happened very gradually over several years).

Some of you may know your history and remember that Stalin starved his peasants/farmers who lived in the middle of the “bread basket” of Russia.  Stalin was directly responsible for the genocide of as many as 60 million of his own people.  Some were shot point blank, but in the “bread basket” of Russia, the people staved.  Why?

In a sequence of acts against the people, the Stalinist government took the farmers’ stores of grain, selling it on the marketplace to show how “well” Russia was doing.  I’ve seen old footage of the military stealing the food stores from the people.  Of course this leaves the people without food for the harsh Russian winters.  Thus, they starved.  Quite deliberately on the part of the government under Stalin. 

  Okay, so what is the point of all this?  The point is: Preparedness.  Contrary to popular opinion, the American Indian was often prepared for what was to come.  When going to war, they often took a medicine man in order for him to look into the future and prepare the others for what was ahead.  Women and men from one coast to the other prepared for long winters.  On the East coast, that meant stores of corn, beans and squash.  On the Plains it meant dried meat and fruits, pemmican and any other store of food.    I don’t know if you’ve ever looked into preparedness kits — freeze dried food, etc.  I have and one thing I can say — it’s not cheap.

But it is somewhat cheap if you make dried meat (or jerky) yourself.  And it’s easy to do.  Thus, you could make your own “preparedness” kit.  So taking a page from Native America, I thought I’d go over how to make your own jerky.    My friends on the Blackfeet reservation first cut the meat (or have it cut) into thin slices.  They then smoke the meat using a smoke house, green wood and lots of smoke.  After the meat is smoked, it is hung up to dry.  In the old days, the meat was hung in the open air outside.  Nowadays, it’s often hung again in the smoke house.

Now, I don’t have a smokehouse and it’s unlikely I’ll be getting one anytime soon.  So I have another method of jerking meat that is a little different from the traditional method, but it suits me.  And again, it’s easy.  Cut the meat into thin slices (or have it cut), marinade the meat in red wine for beef or buffalo and white wine for chicken, along with a little soy sauce and garlic.  Let it sit in the refrigerator for about 1-2 days and then dehydrate it either in a dehydrator or very low oven.  Dry it this way until the pieces of meat crack when bent, then store.  Usually it takes me several days to get the meat to the “cracking point” when bent.  I use glass jars.  In the old days, they used deer or buffalo hide bags.  I keep the dried meat in the refrigerator, also, although of course they didn’t in the long ago days.  If you do this one batch at a time over several weeks, you’ll have a store of food in very little time (and cheaply also).

I realize it may seem odd to post about such a thing when we live in the land of “plenty.”  But as a very wise man once said, always have a plan.  We live in a world that’s very different than it was say…five years ago.  And though it may seem odd, it never hurts to plan ahead.  One can always eat the meat later if the worst never happens.  And often, when one does plan — and ensures he/she has a plan for anything unforeseen, the worst often never happens.  It’s to this hope that the worst never happens, that I make this blog today.

You’ll have to let me know what you think of this kind of blog — one that gives some preparedness skills directly (and indirectly) from the American Indian.  Don’t forget, I’ll be giving away a copy of the book, BLACK EAGLE today.  So come on in and leave a post for me.

Tell me what you think.  Is it wise to be prepared?  Do you think you can make your own preparedness kits?  Come on in and chat.

The movie of inspiration, Dances with Wolves.   Made in 1990 — I can hardly believe it’s 21 years old.  It seems in some ways as if I were again there, looking at that screen and being taken in by the imagery and storyline.

The movie stars Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, Rodney A. Grant, Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman and Tantoo Cardinal.   Since it was 21 years ago, there may actually be some people in the audience that haven’t seen the movie, and if not, I would highly recommend it — but get the extended version — my favorite.

Beautiful picture of Costner and a wolf.  I’m not going to tell you the story line, rather, I thought I’d tell you of my impression of the movie and how it changed the direction of my writing career.

I first went to see the movie in the long ago (it really doesn’t seem that long ago for me, however).  So into the movie was I that I didn’t “get” alot of the plot line.  But I remember having nightmares of the “Pawnee” Indians that night.

The picture to my left is Rodney A. Grant — one of the handsome, handsome American Indians in the picture.  With his flowing black hair and handsome figure and face, he set many a heart to stir with his presense on the screen.  Now the interesting thing is that Grandfather George — whose full name is George Randall — is a Native American Actor and at the time of Dances with Wolves, he was teaching an acting class.  Rodney A. Grant was one of his students.  Shortly after finishing Grandfather George’s class, Rodney secured this role.  Off to the right here is Grandfather George at his 90th birthday party last year.  As an aside, time is weird, isn’t it?  While it seems like yesterday that I saw Dances With Wolves, it seems so long ago that we had that party.

Graham Greene was another actor who shined in Dances With Wolves.  His acting skills were showcased in this movie as he created at first fear, then intelligence, humility, humor and abover all, understanding.  As you probably know, he went on to star in many, many other pictures.

To the right here is a picture of Mary McDonnell, the beauty who captured Kevin Costner’s attention.  And she was a beauty.  I once heard Costner say that he wanted a woman for the role — not some young starlet, but a woman who might even have wrinkles.  I remember thinking at the time that Mary certainly looked to me to be a young starlet.  But  I guess that’s only my opinion.

I gotta admit I really like this picture over to the left.  The “butt up” picture as I call it.

Here the Indians are showing Costner the ins and outs of scouting.  In the background you can see the herd of buffalo.  I remember hearing again Costner talking about the scene where they were chasing buffalo and how macho those stunt Indians were.

I hope you appreciate the picture, too.  I thought I’d share a little bit of the score with you.  For any of you who read music, you can hum right along with the melody that’s played over and over in the movie.  As soon as I started humming it, scenes from the movie came back to me.

And now for a little bit of the trivia that I promised you.  I had long been a fan of Indian romance novels, but never wanted to attempt one because just the thought of all the research involved seemed daunting to me.  After I saw Dances With Wolves, I started reading everything I could get my hands on concerning the American Indian way of life.  I read and read and read until one day a friend of my said to me, “And now you have enough information to write that Indian romance.”  At the time, I didn’t think so, I’d given up on writing.  But then a plot came to mind, and … well that was the story that started my career.

Of course no story would be complete without showing you the picture of the villain of the picture — off to the right here is Wes Studi, an actor who has really mastered the art of the “bad guy.”  He completely scared me when I first saw this picture.  Later — much later — I met him at a First Americans in the Arts event — and he was, indeed, not scary and a very nice gentleman.

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed having a look at some of the pictures from Dances With Wolves and I hope that if you haven’t seen the movie, you’ll give it a try.

Would love to hear your thoughts about this wonderful, trend setting movie.  So come on in and leave a post.  I may be long in answering today as I’ll be away from the computer until this evening.  But come on in and chat!

Hello readers of P&P. I am always thrilled to be invited to write something for your – hopefully – reading pleasure. I have always loved our westward expansion and in high school every term paper and book report I did was on our Native Americans and the old west. Especially, after I fell in love with Jeff Chandler when he played Cochise in BROKEN AROW. Now that goes back, some, but he inspired me like no one else ever did. I was 12 years old at the time when you develop crushes on movie stars. Later as an adult I had a chance to visit the very places I had written about. I even visited the place where Cochise had one of his strongholds.

I never planned to write a book but when my son dared me to do it one day, I accepted his dare. I knew if I wrote anything it would be about Apaches and Cochise would be in there somewhere. When I sat down to write “Apache Moon,” I didn’t realize how much history I had absorbed or learned over the years and the book just flowed out of me and was finished in three months. When I finished it and asked my son to read it, I waited breathlessly for his opinion. His only comment was,” It reads like a book.”  So much for a fan in the family!

But once I started the book of my heart, I found I could not stop and it ended up a trilogy. When it got published, the title was changed to APACHE WARRIOR and the publisher wanted it to end with the hero, Kayto, and heroine, Amanda, getting married in the first book. I agreed, but it broke my heart. Later, I had so many requests for the “rest of the story” and “what happened to the other characters in the book,’ that I finally did the sequels, APACHE PROMISE, and APACHE WINTER. They are both up on the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes and Noble NOOK as of June 7, 2011.

While in all my books the underlying story is a romance, I have included actual historical events and some notable persons from the time period. I researched the Apache Life-Way, their beliefs and customs and tried to be as accurate as possible in depicting them in a positive light. In fact, I probably lean more to the Apache’s viewpoint rather than the white man’s many times. With in the three books I try to show that Love knows no color, creed or race. It happens in the heart, when and where you least expect it, and if allowed to grow, it can conquer differences in culture, hatred, and personal loss.

APACHE WARRIOR begins the saga of a Baltimore belle and a Chiricahua brave caught up in a taboo love that has the power to heal or harm a broken people. The Civil War is about to break out in the east leaving two sisters alone in a city filling up with strangers and military personnel after the tragic death of their parents. They feel their only hope in an uncle who went west in the California gold rush and is now living in Tucson, Arizona. It is a perilous journey for two young ladies but they go anyway.  Their stagecoach is stopped at Apache Pass and the leader, Kayto, who plans to give Amanda to his mother as a slave, takes Amanda. Her defiance of him and her poking one of his braves in the belly with her parasol arouses his interest and later his desire. Because of her independent ways and broad-mindedness instilled in her by her father, she refuses to be treated as a slave and wins Kayto’s whole family over. Kayto and Amanda fall in love in spite of their differences only to be torn apart when Cochise is betrayed by a white army officer and goes on a relentless war of revenge for the next 11 years.

APACHE PROMISE, book 2, continues the story of the star-crossed lovers and the years following Cochise’s declaration to rid the southwest of all white-eyes. It also develops the love story of the sister, Candice, and the gambler, Damon Knight, who was on the stage with the girls. Kayto and Amanda have two poignant meetings during this time but know they cannot be together for now. Promises are made but they may not be able to be kept with the land on fire.

APACHE WINTER, book 3, tells of the sad, closing chapters in the life of the Chiricahuas. It is the end of the wild and free Apache. In 1870, a former army scout, prospector, and rancher, Tom Jeffords, comes to Tucson.  For ten years no white man has seen Cochise and lived to tell about it. Disgusted with the conflict and the destruction of so much life and property, Jeffords decides to go see Cochise, personally, alone. His meeting is a real historical event and I have read several accounts of it and have written it the way I’d like to think it went. It changed the course of history and General Oliver O. Howard was able to secure an honorable peace from President Grant for the Chiricahuas to have their own land and their own Apache police force instead of the U. S. Army governing them. Tom Jeffords did actually become the first Indian Agent on Cochise’s reservation, as he would have no other. In my story, Tom prevails upon Amanda to become the first schoolteacher and she and Kayto are finally reunited. This was a little untrue on my part as the Apache children were brutally ripped from their families and sent east to a boarding school in Carlisle, PA where they were stripped of everything they knew and were made to conform to a white man’s world.

My second paperback book, NAVAJO NIGHT, dealt with a Navajo Holy man and a white preacher’s daughter caught up in a tragic period in their struggle with the white man’s encroachment, called “The Long Walk.”  It was when General Carlton rounded up 4000 Navajos and marched them south to a barren plain called the Bosque Redondo in southern New Mexico in an attempt to Americanize and Christianize the Navajos. The experiment eventually failed and after four years, the Navajos were allowed to the return to the four corners area where they reside today.

If anyone has any questions, I’d be happy to answer them. I will give away a free copy of either APACHE WARRIOR or NAVAJO NIGHT and several bookmarks to one lucky commenter today. Thank you for reading my post. http://www.carolanndidier.com/

Have any of you ever incorporated your family history into your writing? Do you like to read books that are based, however loosely, on factual happenings?

My mom was the oldest of eleven children. She knew everyone in our family and how they were related. Because she and my dad grew up together in a tiny little town in southeast Oklahoma (their high school had a graduating class of twelve), she also knew quite a lot about his side of the family as well.

But when I was younger, I was not interested in the stories she told me.  It was only later, when I was grown and had children of my own, that I began to wonder and ask questions, and by that time, her memory had already begun to decline.

 If you have ever read the book, The Education of Little Tree, (by Forrest Carter) or seen the HBO movie, this story might sound familiar. When Andrew Jackson decided that the Indians were to be assimilated into the white man’s world, he put lots of plans into action that would take years to snowball and evolve into what they eventually became—a truly shameful period in the US governmental policies and procedures. One of Jackson’s plans, besides Removal, that was carried through into subsequent presidencies, was the idea of assimilating Native American children in white homes to integrate them more completely. The Native American children were taken from their villages and given to willing white families (along with a tidy little government stipend for their troubles) to raise.

 My great-great-great grandfather was one of these children.  We don’t know his real name. It was changed when he was delivered to his new “family”, a Presbyterian minister and his wife.  Their last name was Walls.  So his name was changed to Walls, and he was given the first name, David. Forbidden to speak his language, he was forced to forget all the ways of his People, and dress in white man’s clothing, go to white school.  But he was never going to be white, and his place in the world was divided so drastically that he could not fit in anywhere.  Eventually, the Rev. Walls sent David to medical school in Missouri.  When he returned to the small town where he’d been raised, he was a doctor who rode to his patients on horseback. Later, he married and had children, but it was not a happy union and his son, my great-great grandfather, became an alcoholic whose own children, in turn, left home as soon as they possibly could. My great grandmother, his daughter, married at 13.  Her older sister left home one day and never returned.  No one ever knew what became of her.

I’ve often thought of these children that were abducted by our cavalrymen, and taken away to their white “families”, forbidden everything familiar and forced to adopt everything new and different, even their speech and childhood games. Can you imagine it?  To never be allowed to see your mother and father again. Siblings separated and “given” to different families, their heritage and connection with one another lost forever.  How many tears must they have shed? And how lonely and separate they must have felt, how isolated,  even into adulthood…so that most of them, I imagine, never were able to fit in anywhere in the world.

 My story in the 2011 SUMMER COLLECTION, available through Victory Tales Press, is based loosely on what happened to my long-ago ancestor  

Dr. Shay Logan has just returned to Talihina, Indian Territory, from medical school in Missouri. Shay hopes to settle down and make a life for himself, but how?  He doesn’t belong to either world, Anglo or Indian He’s made the acquaintance of Katrina Whitworth at the July 4th town social, and the attraction is mutual from the very beginning. Shay begins to have hopes and dreams that may be out of the question…but Katrina seems to have stars in her eyes for him as well. Will she risk everything to be with him?   Katrina makes a social blunder, and Shay follows her into the woods to apologize to her, but when they return, Katrina’s drunken father humiliates her.  To make matters worse, her former beau shows a side of himself she had not seen before. Can Katrina and Shay have a life together that they so badly want? Here’s an excerpt for you.

FROM ONE MAGIC NIGHT:

As his hand started its descent, Katrina turned away.  But Shay’s arm shot out, grasping Whitworth’s hand and holding it immobile.

“You will not.”

Three words, quietly spoken, but with a heat that could have melted iron, a force that could have toppled mountains.

Katrina’s father’s face contorted, his teeth bared, finally, as he tried to jerk away. He didn’t utter a word.  He stared up into Shay Logan’s eyes that promised retribution, as the seconds ticked by.  Finally, he lunged once more, trying to pull free, but Shay still held him locked in a grip of steel.  Only when he released that grip was Whitworth freed.

“You presume too much, Doctor Logan, unless you are assuming the care and responsibility of my daughter.”

“Papa! Oh, please!” Katrina felt herself dissolving into a puddle of less than nothing beneath stares of the townspeople of Talihina.  What had started as an exciting, beautiful evening had become an embarrassing nightmare.  It was torture to think that she was the cause of it all.  How she wished she had stayed home with Jeremy as she’d first planned, before Mrs. Howard had volunteered to keep him company.

Now, Papa was saying these things that she knew he would regret later.  It was always this way when he drank too much.  These accusations had gone beyond the pale of anything he’d ever said before.  But Shay Logan wouldn’t realize that.  He wouldn’t know that Papa would be sorry tomorrow.

Evidently, there was one thing Shay did recognize, though.  She saw the very slight flare of his nostrils as he drew in the scent of alcohol on her father’s breath, and in that instant, there was a flash of understanding in his eyes.

“You’ve had too much to drink, Mr. Whitworth,” he said in an even tone.  “I will overlook your behavior toward me because of that, but not toward your daughter.  She has done nothing, yet you would strike her, and cause her shame.”

“She’s my daughter,” Whitworth replied sullenly.

“But not your property, Whitworth.  Never that.  You owe her an apology.”

“No, Shay, really—” Katrina began, then as her father whirled to look at her, she broke off, realizing her mistake.  ‘Shay,’ she had called him.  As if she had known him forever.  As if she was entitled to use his given name freely.  As if she were his betrothed.

“‘Shay’ is it, daughter?  Not, ‘Dr. Logan’?  Shay.”  He spit the words out bitterly.  He drew himself up, looking Shay in the face.  “I’ll not be apologizing to her—or to you.  And I’ll expect nothing less than a wedding before this week’s end.  Do you understand me, Doctor?”

Shay had lost any patience he might have harbored.  “You understand me, Whitworth.  You will not dictate to me, or to your daughter on such matters of the heart.  As I say, the alcohol has got you saying things you’re going to regret, and—”

“Threatening me, are you?  Threatening me?”

“Truman.”  Jack Thompson stepped out of the crowd and smoothly came to stand beside Katrina.  “Let’s put this…unfortunate incident…behind us, shall we?”  He confidently tucked Katrina’s hand around his arm.  “I can see that the church auxiliary ladies have almost got everything set up for this wonderful Independence Day meal—” he frowned at Mrs. Beal, nodding at the picnic tables behind her.  She jumped, motioning the other ladies to resume the preparation.

He gave a sweeping glance around the group of onlookers.  “I, for one, am ready to eat! How about you all?”

Katrina was swept along at his side as he walked toward the tables, speaking to acquaintances and friends, laughing and…and seething with tense anger the entire time.  She could feel it in his body, with every step he took and the tightness of his grip as he covered her hand with his. Katrina glanced back over her shoulder, hoping to catch a glimpse of Shay, but the crowd blocked her view.

“Smile, my dear,” Jack gritted into her ear.  “I’m hoping we can still salvage your virtue, no matter what happened, really, between you and the good doctor.  If I see him near you again, I’ll kill him.”

BUY LINKS

Smashwords:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/66862

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/victorytalespress

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/VTPanthologies

 Lulu:

http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/2011-summer-collection-anthology-sweetsensual/16048225

http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=55332464

Here’s the link at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00564A820

 I WILL BE GIVING AWAY COPIES OF A 2011 SUMMER COLLECTION TO TWO LUCKY COMMENTERS! JUST LEAVE ME A COMMENT WITH YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS AND I WILL DRAW WINNERS SOMETIME AFTER 8:00 TONIGHT!

Good Morning, afternoon or evening & Happy Tuesday!

Did you know that most American Indians (before the advent of European civilization pushed in upon them) could tell from a footprint, a piece of clothing, the style of bow and arrow or other facets, what tribe the article came from?  How many of us could tell by simply looking at a person, where that person was from and what he or she did for a living?  We share so many common traits today (one state to the other), that it might be hard to tell, let alone pick up an article and tell at a glance where it was from and what tribe.  Anyhow, I thought that it might be fun to have a look at a few of the Western tribes and how they were not only similar, but how they were different.  Oh, I’ll be giving away a free book today, also.

I thought we’d have a look at the different hair styles:

This young fellow here to the left is Crow.  Notice the hair straight up on top, the loop necklace, the braids starting high and going straight down.  The hair going up like this was called pompadour style.  Here are some other images of the Crow:

Notice the looping necklace, the braids starting high mostly and the pompadour style of hair.  The Crow men were known to be very proud of their very, very long hair and their hair frequently touched the ground as they walked.  The women, due to cutting their hair when a relative died, women often had to augment their hair by adding to it in order to get the length.

Then there were the Sioux or the Lakota, Dakota or Nakota (depending on the dialect).  Now the picture to the right is a favorite of mine — it’s Adam Beach, who is not Sioux.  However, his style of hair and dress could be Sioux.  What we generally think of as Western Indian is often the image of the Teton Sioux.  The men wore their hair in many different styles, but often left it loose.  Two braids with a center part was common.  Here are some images of the Sioux:  Notice that the braids start a little lower down on the face and note the part in the middle.

The Sioux men also made a habit of wearing a bone choker and what I’ve always referred to as a breast plate made of bone.  Notice that the young man nearest wears this bone breast plate.  Also note that the image on the far right is that of Sitting Bull.

Handsome, handsome people the Sioux, and they still are.  Notice this young man on the left wearing traditional hair-style with a superman T-shirt. 

And then there were the Cheyenne.  The young man to the left (nearest) is Cheyenne.  Because the Cheyenne were allied to the Sioux, often their style of dress and hair-style often mimicked the Sioux.  The Cheyenne were fearsome warriors.  Interestingly, they once were farmers, but moved West, or were pushed West and once settled there, they became some of the most famous warriors in all of American history.  Here are some other images of the Cheyenne:

Notice that the images of these men look to me to be as if they might be Sioux as well as Cheyenne.

And then there were the Blackfeet.  The Blackfeet men sometimes wore their hair in the style of the pompadour, but one would never have confused them with their traditional enemies, the Crow.  Like other tribes, the men wore braids (and the women, too), but the men wore their hair in three braids (one in the back).  Shell earrings (white but often pink) were traditional styles for both men and women.  And often the Blackfeet wore the choker and the looping necklace as well.

The picture to my far right is Blackfeet, also.  Notice, too, the manner in which the Blackfeet wore their war bonnets…straight up — a little different than the Sioux.

Well, I do believe that this is all the time that I have for this subject today.  The photo to the left isn’t as large as I would have liked, but I’m wondering if you can guess which tribe is represented?  

Can you guess?  All of the following books of mine were all written about this tribe:  Gray Hawk’s Lady, White Eagle’s Touch, Night Thunder’s Bride, Wolf Shadow’s Promise, Soaring Eagle’s Embrace, The Princess and the Wolf.  I’ll be giving away one of these books to a lucky blogger today — and it doesn’t matter is you get the tribe right or not.    So come on in and make a stab at this — I’ll announce the tribe when I announce the winner of the book.

Good Morning (or afternoon or evening)!

How I love the American West and how I love the stories that came out of that long ago West.  This is one that I thought I’d share today — the story of a tame coyote, Smoky.

This story comes to us from James Willard Schultz (Apikuni), who wrote the book BLACKFEET AND BUFFALO.  It’s a true story of himself and his son who found a coyote pup and regardless of how others kept telling him that the animal couldn’t be tamed, he decided to keep the pup and try to tame it.

There was a saying in the old buffalo days, and both whites and Indians agreed that wolves could sometimes be tamed, but not a coyote…never.  An old man named Bill Weaver once said, “plumb wild an’ trech’r'us no matter how careful you was in tryin’ to gentle ‘em.”  Now, this all happened in the White Mountains in Arizona.  Schultz’s son, Hart, found the pup…a male, who had been separated from its mother and was on the verge of starving.  Taking pity on it, he fed the animal, making its first meal a big stack of pancakes and bacon.

At last, Smoky had found a home.  The first thing Schultz and his son did was make a shed for him and tie him to a thirty foot chain.  The chain was to keep him from running away.

Luckily they had a dog — a female — Zora, and so Smoky at least had company.  Now here begins some things I didn’t know about coyotes.  They eat more than dogs and they are extremely fast.  (I guess they have to be.)  Darting here and there, Schultz often described him a a streak of grey.  He was also a joy, according to Schultz.  He loved being petted, he greeted his “family” with happiness, and he often licked their faces, showing them his love.

Eventually Schultz determined to set Smoky free, afraid he would leave.  But Smoky didn’t stray.  He kept with his friend, Zora, and they roamed the forest together.  But unfortunately some things can’t be helped and when Schultz’s neighbor bought some chickens, and when Smoky caught five of them, including a prize rooster, Smoky found himself again chained.  But oh, how he enjoyed his outings.

He was swifter than Zora, Schultz’s dog and when they took him hunting, Schultz again describes him as a gray flash — he was everywhere at once, exploring everything.  Once he caught himself a skunk and promptly ate him, then went about trying to get rid of the stinch.  He never again caught a skunk.

Smoky soon became the best hunter and retriever that Schultz ever had.  He would corner prey, then wait for Schultz to come and make the kill.  He loved the crack of the gun, rushing to seize the prey and bringing it to plop at Schultz’s feet.  No one starved while Smoky was on duty.

Interestingly, Smoky got along well with women — he loved them all.  But he took an instant dislike to many of Schultz’s men friends and he would not let any man except for Schultz and his son near him and certainly not one of  those men would think of petting him.

Now here’s the part I really didn’t know and found very interesting.  Did you know that coyotes (and wolves too) only mate in the month of February and the early part of March?  That’s it.  Any other time, forget it.  Schultz tried to mate Smoky with their dog Zora, but it was summer time and Smoky wouldn’t have anything to do with her.  Can you imagine if humans were that way?  Thank goodness we are not.

What happened to Smoky?  One day while Schultz and his son were out hunting, they happened upon 3 other coyotes.  Smokey took after them and didn’t return for minutes, then hours. Schultz and his son were worried.  Were they going to lose him?  Had he deserted them to return to his own kind?  Filled with loss, Schultz and son stopped hunting and turned back for home.  But then, they hadn’t gone too far when suddenly in a flash of gray fur Smoky dashed upon them and commensed to licking their faces, whining and whining and running around them in joy.  Then suddenly, he went off a distance, looking back at them as though to say, “Well are we going to hunt or what?”  It was a beautiful moment.  Schultz writes that he realized that Smoky loved them even more than his own kind.  Or perhaps Schultz and his son had become his own kind.

So in this same vein, I thought it would be fun to talk about our pets.  I absolutely love my animals.  I have cats and dogs and when my kids were young we had a parakeet.  And to me, these animals are family.  How about you?  Do you have a pet?  Someone you love very dearly?

Come on in and let’s talk. Leave a post.  I’ll be giving away a free book once again to some lucky blogger.  And I’d love to trade stories about our “babies.”  Maybe I’ll tell you the story of how one of my sister-in-law’s cats saved her life…  True story.  So come on in.  Leave a post.  Oh, off to the right here is a copy of the cover of THE SPIRIT OF THE WOLF.  Hero’s name:  Gray Coyote.