Many thanks to all of you who came here today to blog. I enjoyed each and every comment. And thank you also for your kind words regarding the recent loss of our pet.
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Laughter, the Pet Wolf — True Story
By the way, I’ll be giving away a free book to some lucky blogger today. Nothing to read — nothing to buy — just log on and leave a post and you’re automatically entered.
This is a very tough year for us and our pets. Three of our older cats were elderly and passed away. But we also lost another of our cats, Midnight, and recently we lost our newest addition to what we think was poisoning. We live in a neighborhood that has a gopher problem, and we think one of our neighbors put out poison. He was a youngster and dearly loved, and so because I’m still very sad about it, I thought I’d do another post regarding pets. An uplifting story.
Off to the left here is litte Zoomer (as I called him) or Robere. He had gotten into my car and stuck behind my GPS unit.
Pets are so important in any culture. And probably there is no human culture alive and well that doesn’t love and keep pets. Sometimes these pets are in the form of the family cow or the family pig or the family chickens. (Just recently a friend was going out of town and needed someone to watch her chickens. We were interviewed to see if we qualified to watch them for a week!)
Here’s another picture of Zoomer or Robere. It seems to me that pets enrich our lives. They love us when perhaps no one else might and they’re always there for us. Now, there were many pets in Native America. There were dogs aplenty. Indeed, before the advent of the horse in America, the dog was a necessity to any family. Those dogs watched the children, carried the family’s supplies and in Alaska, they formed a very needed mode of transportation (the dog sled).
I don’t know if you can see this very well, but behind me is a tiger. We discovered him (my husband and I) at a gas station along the route to Florida. He’s very much a pet. But I do wonder what it costs to keep him in food.
But I digress. I wanted to tell you about a true story. The story of Laughter the pet wolf. It’s a story told by James Willard Schultz in his book, Why Gone Those Times. The title of the chapter is called, Laugher, The Story of a Tame Wolf. Found by Schultz and his Blackfeet friend, Nitaina, after a rain storm had killed all of its brothers and sisters, Nitaina and Schultz carried the baby wolf home. I do want to repeat a little of the book’s narrative, if you will bear with me.
“Woles are not like dogs, you know. A dog father knows not his own children. A wolf marries and he and his wife live always together until death. When children come, he hunts for them, and brings food for them, and watches over them faithfully while the mother goes out to hunt and run around, and keep up her strength. Ah, they are wise, true hearted animals, the big wolves of the plains. And what hunters they are; they never suffer from want of food.”
Laughter was a male pup. He would sit outside the lodge at night and listen to the wolves off in
the distance. He would run to his mater then and plead with him to take him out there. But his master would say “no,” and Laughter would obey. Interestingly none of the male dogs in camp liked him — the females did — but not the males, and so Laughter’s lot in life became fighting very early on. At first he was afraid of the other dogs, but then after he killed one of them, they all left him alone.
Now, interestingly, Laughter was only friendly to his master, Nitaina. He would tolerate Schultz, but he never really warmed up to him. In fact, he would snarl at anyone else other than Nitaina. Nitaina and Schultz would take Laughter with them when they were going on war parties. You couldn’t take a dog, because dogs would act the same as saying, “We’re here. We’re here. We’ve come here to fight you.” But not Laughter. He was a help to the war party, and not a hindrance. Indeed, Laughter saved their lives by sniffing out the enemy before Schultz and Nitaina were even aware there was an enemy about.
What became of Laughter? He stayed with Nitaina until he was full grown. They had many adventures. But Laughter began to absent himself from the camp for several days — and then for many days. Again, I should say again that wolves are not like dogs. He needed his own kind. He needed to marry. At first Nitaina tried to tie him, but Laughter would snap the ropes in two. And so there came a day when Laughter came no more. But there is a happy ending to the story, and I quote, “Later on we saw him one last time. We were hunting, and away out on the plain noticed two wolves sitting on a low butte watching us. As we neared them one came trotting down to meet us, and lo! it was Laughter, oh, so glad to see his master. Nitaina got down off his horse and petted him, then remounted and called him to follow. He sat down and watched us starting on, and whined, and trotted back to the butte and the wife he had found. He jumped around her, wagging his tail, and then started toward us, looking back — by all his actions coaxing her to follow, but she would not move. Again and again he did that, and at last gave up and howled. He loved Nitaina, but he love his young wife most.
“We had thought in the spring to capture several wolf pups and tame them, and saw that it would be only a waste of time and trouble. The call of kind to kind is stronger than any other love.”
And so ends the story of Laughter, the tame wolf as told by James Willard Schultz.
Now, my question to you is this: Do you have pets? Have you had any unusual pets? And I’d also like to ask — because I sit here very, very sad over the loss of Zoomer/Robere — have you ever lost a dear one, and if so, and you feel like sharing, did it affect your life?
Don’t forget to pick up your copy today at www.novels-by-KarenKay.com
A HORSE OF ANOTHER COLOR by Laurie Kingery
It’s always a pleasure when I get to pay a visit to the fillies and readers at Petticoats and Pistols, since it’s the best western blog out there!
Like most of us of a certain age <ahem!> I spent my Saturday mornings watching the cowboys on TV, and I
noticed something about most of them—they had horses that weren’t just…brown. No, the Lone Ranger had his white horse, Silver, Hopalong Cassidy had Topper, another white horse, Roy Rogers had his beautiful palomino, Trigger, the Cisco Kid had his splashy black and white pinto, Diablo. The Lone Ranger’s sidekick 
Tonto also had a brown and white pinto, Scout.
Going back further in western lore, Zorro had his dramatic black stallion, Tornado. Even Gene Autry’s horse Champion had a lovely flaxen mane and tail.
And what did the outlaws ride? Brown, nondescript horses, almost always.
Horse color is fascinating to me, and it’s important to get it right. Nothing knocks me out of a story faster than to read that a
horse is “brown” but has a black mane and tail. No, that’s a bay. Neither can a golden-colored horse with a black mane and tail be considered a palomino—that’s a dun, or as some would call it, a buckskin. (There is some disagreement over whether yellow horses without black manes and tails are duns or buckskins.) Among duns there are zebra duns (with a dark stripe going across the shoulders and down the back, yellow duns, claybank duns, red duns, lilac and more. Gray isn’t merely gray, but can be dappled, flea-bitten (with tiny dark spots), or grullo. And it makes a difference what part of the country or 
world you’re in, too. A chestnut (light brown, sometimes with a lighter mane and tail) would likely be called a sorrel out west, and there are a myriad of specific variations according to how dark the brown is on the body and mane and tail. A paint or pinto would be a piebald or skewbald in England, depending on whether it’s black and white or brown and white. A paint horse can be an overo or a tobiano, depending on the pattern of the white. Roans can be blue, strawberry, seal and more.
Bewildering, yes, and I can’t begin to cover the subject completely. A discussion of breeds is a subject for another blog, if that hasn’t already been done. I’d like to share a book that helped me make sense of it all—HORSE COLOR, A COMPLETE GUIDE TO HORSE COAT COLORS, by D. Phillip Sponenberg and Bonnie V. Beaver. It’s available on Amazon if you’re interested.
Ever since I’ve started writing historicals, it’s been very clear to me that a particular horse figured in my hero’s story, it had to be some special color. In my May Love Inspired Historical, HILL COUNTRY CATTLEMAN, sixth in the “Brides of Simpson Creek” series, horses are featured very prominently in the book. My hero, Raleigh Masterson, first catches my aristocratic English heroine Violet Brookfield’s eye riding on the back of a beautiful blue roan stallion on Main Street of Simpson Creek. Learning that the lovely woman is an accomplished equestrienne and is in need of a mount during her visit to the Texas Hill Country, he loans her a pinto mare, Lady.
Naturally, during the course of the story, Raleigh and Violet fall in love—but how can a Texas cowboy and former trail boss hope to be worthy of the daughter of an viscount, especially when she’s got a beau back home in jolly old England who’s promised to give her her own hunter and start a stud of racehorses? Raleigh’s got nothing, not even his own ranch. But then an endurance race is proposed to put Simpson Creek on the map for horse racing. Contestants are to change horses halfway through the demanding course over hilly terrain. The prize will be a prime piece of San Saba County ranchland. Voilà—the chance for Raleigh to feel worthy of his English lady. You’ll have to read the book to find out how the race went, as one lucky commenter will do, for I’m giving away a copy of the book, of course. And for those who’d like to read the prologue to this story that didn’t make it into the book because of word count restrictions, please visit my website at www.lauriekingery.com
My thanks to Wikimediacommons.org for the horse pictures, and again to the fillies for letting me come visit.
Blessings,
Laurie Kingery
The Gibson Girl
Until I started researching for my November release, I had no idea that the Gibson Girl actually began as a satirical portrayal of the feminine ideal of beauty in America around the turn of the 20th century. For a twenty-year period between 1890 and 1910, Charles Dana Gibson created pen-and-ink illustrations representing what he called a “composite of thousands of American girls.”
Named after Mr. Gibson’s illustrations, the Gibson Girl image epitomized the late 19th and early 20th century America’s preoccupation of youth and fleeting beauty. This ideal image of womanhood combined elements of both the “fragile lady” and the “voluptuous woman.” The basic slender lines and a sense of respectability came from the fragile lady. While the large busts and hips were taken from the voluptuous woman, though not in vulgar or lewd terms as had been the case prior to this.
The Gibson Girl was supposed to be tall and slender, statuesque, narrow-waisted, with ample bosom, hips and buttocks, often exaggerated by wearing a swan-bill corset. The Gibson Girl’s neck was supposed to be thin and highlighted by piling the woman’s hair high atop her head.
Of course, she was a member of upper class society, a modern woman at ease in her own skin, yet still stylish. She could be found cycling, playing tennis or engaging in other athletic activities. 
She was supposed to be calm, independent, and confident, an equal sometimes teasing companion to men.
When Mr. Gibson was asked where he came up with this depiction of the quintessential American Beauty, he was known to say, “I saw her on the streets, I saw her at the theatres, I saw her in the churches. I saw her everywhere and doing everything…there isn’t any ‘Gibson Girl,’ but there are thousands of American girls, and for that let us all thank God.”
By the outbreak of World War I, changing fashions caused the Gibson Girl to fall out of favor when more practical clothing became the norm and women flooded the workforce out of necessity. Nevertheless, she will always be considered the image of turn-of-the-century American Beauty.
To me, the Gibson Girl is a gorgeous representation of feminine beauty, and far more attainable (sans the corset) than what we consider beautiful today.
What say you?
What’s in a Town’s Name?
I love to learn about how towns got their names, both real and fictional.
When fellow Filly Linda Broday, Jodi Thomas, DeWanna Pace and I decided to write our first anthology together, we wanted our stories to take place in our hometown. The premise was that each story had to have a theme of Amarillo by morning, which was our working title. You all will probably recognize it as “Give Me a Texan” the fantastic name that Kensington gave it! To any of you writers out there, don’t get too attached to the name of your work in progress because it probably will change.
Historically, Amarillo wasn’t the first name given our town. In 1887, we were originally called Oneida when merchants from Colorado City wanted to establish stores at a logical stop in the Panhandle. Since they needed votes to choose the county seat and most of the voters were cowboys working for the surrounding ranches, the promoters promised each of them a residential or business lot to vote for Oneida. Not surprisingly Oneida won but was promptly renamed Amarillo. Keep in mind that the Panhandle was only settled beginning in 1875. It’s been said that we were renamed Amarillo after the Arroya Amarillo or Amarillo Creek which were probably named by traders for the “yellow soil” and yellow wildflowers. Amarillo is Spanish for yellow. Of interest, all the frame houses in Amarillo were painted yellow in our infancy.
My story in “Give Me a Texas Ranger” is set in Tascosa, the second town settled in the Panhandle, although I had to change the name somewhat to fit my story. Its original name was Atascosa meaning “boggy creek”, but it was too difficult to pronounce, thus becoming Tascosa. Several kernels of history from actual accounts of Old Tascosa, as it’s known today, germinated into my story about how the “upwardly” folks of Upper Tascosa wanted to make sure the rowdy, detestable citizens kept their distance in Hogtown or Lower Tascosa. They would have never associated with people named Rockin’ Chair Emma, Boxcar Jane, Slippery Sue, and Gizzard Lips. Thus, for my story, Old Tascosa became Buffalo Springs along with its seedy residents restricted to a part of the town across the creek known as Buffalo Wallow instead of the original name of Hogtown.
But, I could have never told my story without having my characters be forced to relocate from the oldest town settled in the Panhandle, Mobeetie, in order to stay one step ahead of the law. Both towns were founded only a year apart, some one hundred and thirty-five years ago. If it hadn’t been for Mobeetie, and one determined Texas Ranger Captain hell bent for leather on cleaning up the town, Tascosa would not have exited. Separated by only 135 miles, they soon became mirror images of one another.
Mobeetie, originally named Hidetown and later Sweetwater, is still referred to today as the “Mother City of the Panhandle”; and, evolved from buffalo hunters’ camps and from the nearby Army post, Fort Elliott. In the beginning (1875), it was the legal, business, and social center for this part of Texas. The town faded when the railroad bypassed it two years later; and in 1890 when the Army abandoned nearby Fort Elliott (the only military post ever established in the Panhandle), the town withered further. What remained was totally destroyed by a cyclone…today I think it’d just be called a regular ol’ tornado.
In anthology two, “Give Me a Cowboy” we set our stories over a four day period for the 4th of July Rodeo in Amarillo; however, one problem came to light. There was no rodeo in Amarillo in 1890, so we had to find a new name to be historically accurate. If we weren’t all raised here we could have probably taken creative liberties but since many of the founding father’s families are still around, we weren’t about to take the chance of being called out on it. 
While driving down the highway one day, I saw a railroad crossing outside of Amarillo called Kasota; therefore, Kasota Springs was born. Those who have read all of our anthologies, which I’m happy to say are still in print after six years, will recall that we used that town again in “A Texas Christmas”.
My new eKensington contemporary single title “The Tycoon and the Texan” due out September 5th takes place partially on the Jacks Bluff Ranch outside of Kasota Springs. You might remember the LeDoux family and their ranch from two of our anthologies.
I’m calling my new contemporary series that I’m currently writing “Kasota Springs” as they will all take place in our imaginary town from the anthologies. Many of the names from my stories will reappear as fifth and sixth generation residents.
Now for some fun facts about some Texas towns and locations.
One of the most interesting was how the famous, and still in existence, XIT Ranch got its brand. The ranch was created in 1885 and covered much of the Texas Panhandle when the Capitol Syndicate of Chicago received over three million acres of land in exchange for money to build the Texas capitol in Austin. The brand XIT is translated to mean X for the “ten” counties in which the ranch was originally located; I for “in”; and T for “Texas”.
Happy, Texas, was named by cowboys who were elated on cattle drives to find spring-fed
water at Happy Draw. Long before settlers came to the region, the spring was known as the happy hunting ground by the Plains Indians. Happy is proud to known as “The Town Without a Frown” and even had a movie named after it.
Cut and Shoot, Texas, near Houston, was too much fun not to include. Most of the stories agree that there was once a preacher who was much too popular with the women. When charges were made at a church meeting, the men ran to wagons and buggies to get knives and rifles to cut and shoot.
I love Bass Hollow, which was named after Sam Bass and his gang who once made their outlaw camp there. They were notorious for their daring train and bank holdups during the 1870’s.
A town gone many decades and where my grandparents once lived is Pantex, Texas, right outside of Amarillo. The location of the town would suggest that it is the abbreviation compound for Panhandle of Texas. A post office was establish for the population of 115 to provide service to the employees of the Pantex Ordnance Plant, which loaded bombs for the Army from 1942 to 1945, but the town vanished after World War II; however, the plant remains in operation today.
But my very favorite is still Mobeetie. Not just from its history, but a story I’ve heard many times. Although the town was known as Hidetown when it was a hunters’ camp and later Sweetwater, which was changed by the post office since there was already a town by that name, I’ve heard, but can’t confirm that the Indians played a joke on the area folks when they translated the meaning of Sweetwater to be Mobeetie. Later it was discovered that Mobeetie really means “buffalo dung”. It is subject to interpretation. Although I can’t confirm the theory, it dern sure makes a fantastic story for any writer. By the way, the picture above is of the original strap-iron jail in Mobeetie.
What is your favorite town name and why?
To one lucky person who leaves a comment, I will send them a copy of an autographed anthology of their choice.
Winner of Tracy Garrett’s Touch of Texas
Thanks to everyone who dropped by and left a comment about the double-barreled shotgun. I stirred the names in my cowboy hat and my dh pulled out…
COLLEEN
Colleen, email me at tracy@tracygarrett.com and we’ll work out the details.
Thanks, everyone, for dropping by for a visit today.
Victoria Bylin’s Three Winners Are . . .
Many thanks to all who left comments . . . I’m ready to dive into that website update! The winners of the drawing are:
Cori
Diane
Summer
Email me at Vicki.Bylin@gmail.com and I’ll send you the backlist book of your choice as long as I have it available.
We Have a Winner!
My thanks to all those who came to the blog yesterday, and who left a message. I really do enjoy our talks.
Smoky The Tame Coyote
Good Morning (or
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. I’ll also be giving away a free ebook today — so do leave a comment.
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.
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.” Don’t forget that LONE ARROW’S PRIDE is on sale now at online bookstores everywhere.
All In Good Time
Maureen Lang
During the Gilded Age women were extolled for their virtues and depended upon to “civilize” society—to soften or make genteel the coarse tendencies of their male contemporaries by bringing grace and beauty to a sometimes harsh world. It was an age when women trusted husbands or fathers to take care of them, and it was no less than a man’s duty to carry out this noble mission.
Sounds romantic, doesn’t it? The Victorian virtues of female piety and male chivalry weren’t just for the fairy tales; it was widely accepted in polite 1800s society. Women were to bear and rear the children, oversee the household, but beyond deciding what to serve for dinner they weren’t to trouble their little head.
That’s only part of what’s beneath the romantic veneer of the Gilded Age. What happened when men were less than gentlemen or women less than pure? If a young woman lost her virtue, her entire future could be compromised, regardless of being rich or poor. Her father might disown her, and no beaus would come calling. Unfortunately she had few options for making a living without someone to vouch for her integrity.
In my book, All In Good Time, part of my research covered what often happened to such a woman. Young women who were seduced by charming men or, lacking that, a spiked drink. Women who were properly married but whose husband turned out to be a less than honorable, who couldn’t or 
wouldn’t provide for them or deserted them without a penny. Young women who wanted an honest job, only to find out the only way to fully support themselves was to “supplement” their wages with a few indiscriminate assignations on the side. All of these scenarios, and more, provided the slippery slope to full time prostitution.
Here are a few facts I learned about the world’s oldest profession from an 1858 statistical study of American prostitution. It revealed the three leading causes behind the choice of prostitute:
Inclination
Destitution
Seduced and abandoned
At a glance you’d think “Inclination” meant they chose such a job because they thought they’d enjoy it. Easy work, right? The text quickly explained that if women had an appetite equal to men, illegitimacy and prostitution would be rife—even in “proper” Victorian society.
So what did “Inclination” really mean? Most of the time it meant that while they weren’t forced into such a life, they made the choice willingly because they didn’t seem to have any alternative. Most women who chose prostitution willingly did so as a sequel to some other circumstance. Some were unchaste already, and not always by choice. Others were deceived into thinking it would be a prosperous, easy life, and still others simply hoped to have regular access to alcohol, since a desire to drink was also listed as one of the reasons women fell into the business. Very few of those who stated Inclination as the reason they became prostitutes admitted an overwhelming desire for the actual work they were signing on to do.
Other categories included:
Expectation of an easy life
Fell into bad company
Persuaded by prostitutes
Too idle to work
Violated
Seduced on board an emigrant ship or in a boarding house
Ever since the kind-hearted prostitute in Gone With The Wind, novels have often included “soiled doves” as women neither all good nor all bad. It’s likely true no one is all good or all bad, but to portray girls who lived in such a harsh market as delicate, kind, and sensitive might be a stretch, considering the way society treated them. Even in today’s much more permissive society, prostitution is illegal almost everywhere. It’s hard to imagine a woman maintaining a soft spot for humanity if she’s forced into a role the rest of society, at best, would ignore if not outlaw altogether.
And yet there is no person, no corner of the world, whom God doesn’t love. That’s why I wrote All In Good Time, about a woman who wanted to share God’s love and give women choices—because even my heroine made a mistake. She was never a prostitute herself, but knows the saying all too well “There but by the grace of God, go I.”
All of us make mistakes of one sort or another. Some aren’t quite as visible as others, but a stain is still a stain and we all carry them of one size or another. Writing this book reminded me of how thorough was God’s work on the cross, something I’m always happy to share with others!
I’m also reminded that the Bible itself offers some very colorful characters in its pages. How do you feel about a book that reminds us that history had some rough edges to it?
One final note: I’d be thrilled to give away a free print copy of All In Good Time to anyone living in the US who comments, or an e-book version to anyone outside the US. If you already have a copy of All In Good Time, I’d be happy to extend this offer to any one of my other titles. Just visit Amazon or my website to see your choices.
www.maureenlang.com
- To order, click on cover