John Wayne is featured in my living room at least once a day, because my husband is a HUGE fan! I don’t watch (I have to write!) but I know many of these from sheer repetition (I have to eat sometime, right?)
All you have to do is guess the movie the quote came from to win one of my Western romances, set in the world of professional bull riding. I’ll send one each to two people who get them all right (or comes the closest) NO GOOGLING!
I’ll give you a hint: There’s only one quote from each movie.
READY?
‘Monsewer, words are what men live by’
‘Somebody outa belt you in the mouth…but I won’t, I won’t, the hell I won’t’
‘Fill your hands you son-of-a-bitch’
Slap some bacon on a biscuit and let’s go! We’re burnin’ daylight!
I’m a dying man, scared of the dark.
“You can call me Father, you can call me Jacob, you can call me Jake. You can call me a dirty son-of-a-bitch, but if you EVER call me Daddy again, I’ll finish this fight.”
“Baby sister, I was born game, and I mean to go out that way. That shows you know more about the Lord and His Good Book than you know about men. I was proud to tell my deputy’s wife that I shot his killers.”
“I guess you can’t break out of prison and into society in the same week.”
“Next time you shoot somebody, don’t go near ’em till you’re sure they’re dead’’
They’re famous – but they’re just a little bit dead. They were hung.
Good luck!
Okay, these are the prizes in the offing!
Left with only nightmares and an ugly physical scar, Aubrey Madison is on the road looking for a new life with more freedom. On a whim she answers an ad for a groom on a Colorado ranch. The job gives her plenty of hard work and a quiet place to heal – and it also introduces her to hot, old-school rancher Max Jameson. Max has been raising cattle and breaking horses for all his life, just like his father did before him. Now he’s faced with the fact that those skills are not enough to keep the land in the family. Bree has an idea to save the ranch, but can she risk getting attached to the land and the cowboy who comes with it?
Army medic Katya Smith is unable to get past the experience of losing a fellow soldier. She can’t go back to her unit until she can keep from melting down, so she takes a job as a medic for the pro bull riding circuit in an effort to recover her mojo. She doesn’t expect to become attached to the sport or the riders, especially the king rider of them all, Cam Cahill. Cam is a two-time world champion, but those years have taken a toll. It is time to retire, but he can’t imagine himself off the circuit. Katya does wonderful things for his body, but he is not certain he is ready for the things she does for his heart. She has made it plain this is a temp job, but if he could get her to stay, he can see a whole new future.
It’s hot and my brain is mush, so I decided to do something that wasn’t too taxing. Take a look at these Old West quotes and tell us who said it best or which quote is your favorite.
“A pair of six-shooters beats a pair of sixes.” —Belle Starr
“Never run a bluff with a six-gun.” – Bat Masterson
Belle or Bat?
“I never hanged a man that didn’t deserve it.” Judge Parker’s hangman
“I never killed unless I was compelled to.” –Belle Starr
Belle or George?
“You all can go to hell. I am going to Texas.” — Davy Crockett
“Leave me alone and let me go to hell by my own route.” –Calamity Jane
Davy or Calamity Jane?
Aim at a high mark and you will hit it.” Annie Oakley
Shoot first and never miss. –Bat Masterson
Annie or Bat?
“The grimly humorous phrase about our town was that Tombstone had ‘a man for breakfast every morning.’” — Josephine Sarah Marcus
“Tombstone is a city set upon a hill, promising to vie with ancient Rome in fame, different in character but no less important.” —John C
Josephine or John?
“I have no more stomach for it.” – Tom Horn, resigning as a lawman
“At my age I suppose I should be knitting.” — Poker Alice
Tom or Alice?
“For my handling of the situation at Tombstone I have no regrets. Were it to be done again, I would do it exactly as I did it at the time.”—Wyatt Earp
“I do not regret one moment of my life.” —Lillie Langtry
Wyatt or Lillie?
“After being so bad I could hear the angels singing.” —Lillie Langtry
”People thought me bad before, but if ever I should get free, I’ll let them know what bad means.”-Billy the Kid
Lillie or Billy?
9. “Talk low, talk slow and don’t say too much.” – John Wayne
“Never miss a good chance to shut up.~ Judge Roy Bean
John or Judge Roy?
New from Margaret Brownley!
Cowboy Charm School
When buying a horse don’t consult a pedestrian;
When courting a woman don’t ask advice of a bachelor.
We’re very happy to have multi-published author Charlene Raddon come to visit. Writing is in her blood and she pens some mighty good stories. Authors, if you’re in need of a cover, check out her Silver Sage link at the bottom. Please make her welcome.
Since the heroine in my latest book, Divine Gamble, dealt faro for a living, I had to do a good deal of research on 19th Century games of chance.
Thanks to TV and old western movies, most people (like me) believed poker to be THE game of the times. Instead, it was faro. An honest faro game is as close as you can get to an “even money” game, meaning your odds of winning are nearly the same as for the house. Before the end of the century, however, card sharks figured out how to cheat even at faro.
Faro (for Pharoah, from an old French playing card design) was played with a standard pack of 52 cards. First played in France and England, faro became particularly popular in the U.S. In the movie Tombstone (1993) Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell) plays faro, but the game wasn’t depicted entirely accurate. In Wyatt Earp (1994) Wyatt (Kevin Costner) and his brothers deal faro using the right layout, but still do not play 100% correctly.
The term “bucking the tiger” is said to have come from early card backs that featured a drawing of a Bengal tiger. “Twisting the tiger’s tail” is another euphemism for playing faro. Many gambling parlors were often referred to as “tiger alley” or “tiger town.” Brag, another popular saloon game of the time, which later evolved into 5-card draw poker or “Draw”.
Draw, also called “bluff poker” or “bluff,” was a rarity on the frontier until the late 1870s.
One person was designated the “banker” and an indeterminate number of players could be admitted. The faro table was typically oval, covered with green baize, and had a cutout for the banker. A board was placed on top of the table with one suit of cards (traditionally the suit of spades) pasted to it in numerical order, representing a standardized betting “layout”. Each player laid his stake on one of the 13 cards on the layout. Players could place multiple bets and could bet on multiple cards simultaneously by placing their bet between cards or on specific card edges. Players also had the choice of betting on the “high card” bar located at the top of the layout.
A deck of cards was shuffled and placed inside a “dealing box”, a mechanical device also known as a “shoe“, which was used to prevent manipulations of the draw by the banker and intended to assure players of a fair game.
The first card in the dealing box was called the “soda” and was “burned off”, leaving 51 cards in play. The dealer then drew two cards: the first was called the “banker’s card” and was placed on the right side of the dealing box. The next card after the banker’s card was called the carte anglaise (English card) or simply the “player’s card”, and it was placed on the left of the shoe.
The banker’s card was the “losing card”; regardless of its suit, all bets placed on the layout’s card that had the same denomination as the banker’s card were lost by the players and won by the bank. The player’s card was the “winning card”. All bets placed on the card that had that denomination were returned to the players with a 1 to 1 (even money) payout by the bank (e.g., a dollar bet won a dollar). A “high card” bet won if the player’s card had a higher value than the banker’s card. The dealer settled all bets after each two cards drawn. This allowed players to bet before drawing the next two cards. Bets that neither won nor lost remained on the table, and could be picked up or changed by the player prior to the next draw.
A player could reverse the intent of his bet by placing a hexagonal (6-sided) token called a “copper” on it. Some histories said a penny was sometimes used in place of a copper. This was known as “coppering” the bet, and reversed the meaning of the win/loss piles for that bet.
When only three cards remained in the dealing box, the dealer would “call the turn”, which was a special type of bet that occurred at the end of each round. The object now was to predict the exact order that the 3 remaining cards, Bankers, Players, and the final card called the Hock, would be drawn. The player’s odds here were 5 to 1, while a successful bet paid off at 4 to 1 (or 1 to 1 if there were a pair among the three, known as a “cat-hop”). This provided one of the dealer’s few advantages in faro. If it happened that the three remaining cards were all the same, there would be no final bet, as the outcome was not in question.
A device, called a “casekeep” was employed to assist the players and prevent dealer cheating by counting cards. The casekeep resembled an abacus, with one spindle for each card denomination, with four counters on each spindle. As a card was played, either winning or losing, one of four counters would be moved to indicate that a card of that denomination had been played. This allowed players to plan their bets by keeping track of what cards remained available in the dealing box. The operator of the casekeep, such as the heroine in my book Divine Gamble, is called the “casekeeper”, or colloquially in the American West, the “coffin driver”.
Certain advantages were reserved to the banker: if he drew a doublet, that is, two equal cards, he won half of the stakes upon the card which equaled the doublet. In a fair game, this provided the only “house edge”. If the banker drew the last card of the pack, he was exempt from doubling the stakes deposited on that card. These and the advantage from the odds on the turn bet provided a slight financial advantage to the dealer or house.
Other popular games of chance in wild west saloons were “Beat the Dealer” or “High Dice”, a quick and simple game. This was often played right on the bar with the barkeep as the dealer.
Chuck-a-Luck
Then there was “Under and Over” (or “High/Low” or “Hi & Lo” or “Lucky Number 7”), a popular party game for three to six players played with a dice tray and 2 dice in a shaker cup.
“Chuck-a-Luck”, aka “Sweat”, Sweat Cloth”, “Birdcage”, “Chucker Luck”, “Chuck” or “Big Six” is an old game originating in England. This was played with a dice cup and 3 dice. Because of cheating, the use of a heavy welded metal birdcage device became the standard for the game.
Grand Hazard (not to be confused with Hazard) was a more advanced for of Chuck-a-Luck, with a more sophisticated layout allowing for the simple 1 through 6 “chuck bets”.
Hazard was played with two dice and was the ancestor of the modern dice game, craps.
Monte Bank was a popular card game of the early 19th Century, particularly in the Southwest and mining camps in Northern California.
In Divine Gamble, a mistake made long ago has put Maisy Macoubrie in a killer’s crosshairs. Her only hope is to run. Yet, her chances are slim of surviving alone.
The Preacher, a bounty hunter known for bringing men in alive, finds his own face on a wanted poster—dead or alive—for a crime he didn’t commit. He knows who the real killer is, but trying to prove it could be the last thing he ever does.
United in battle against a common enemy, can Maisy and The Preacher find love and solace in each other? Can they win the biggest gamble of their lives?
Are you a gambler? Have you ever visited a casino? Or have you read a book where they did? Charlene is giving away one digital copy of Divine Gamble to one commenter.
Charlene Raddon is an award-winning author of western historical romance novels and a book cover artist. Originally published by Kensington Books, she is now an Indie author. You can find her at:
One of the things I look forward to most during the Christmas break is playing board games with the family. We tend to hang out in pajamas most days, and the card table becomes a permanent living room fixture.
Last year for Christmas, my brother-in-law (who is an avid board gamer) gave me the game Bang! I posted some details about it in a previous blog post here. It quickly became a favorite. It’s a strategic card game that plays fast with multiple levels of variation since no two games are ever alike. I would highly recommend this for family game night. (And at the end of this post, you’ll get a chance to win a copy!)
Curious to see what other western style games for real money might be out there, I did a little searching. Here are a few I found. I have not actually tried any of these out, but they look promising.
Gunslinger – A card game with bullets – pretty cool.
Revolver: The Wild West Gunfighting Game – If you want to have a private battle of wits with a single opponent, this two-player game that pits lawmen against outlaws might be just what you were looking for.
Then there are games I have played, and LOVED, that have western editions. Settlers of Catan is one of my favorite board games, and I recently saw that they game out with a version of the game set in the US as the railroad expands into the west. YeeHaw!
And Ticket to Ride is another personal favorite, again with the railroad theme. One year for Christmas, my husband and I both bought copies for each other for Christmas. I bought him the US edition, he bought me the Germany edition, and we decided to keep the German one. Nothing more classic than the westward expansion of the railroad conquering the western American frontier, though.
And now for the giveaway. With Christmas around the corner, it seemed the perfect time to give a little gift, so I’m offering a chance to win a copy of the board game Bang. The contest is set up through Amazon, and it is a random draw, so you’ll know instantly if you won or not. when I am notified of a winner, I will post in the comments. Please click on the link below to enter.
Note: You can only enter by clicking on the link. Leaving a comment on the blog will not enter you in the contest. But please do leave me a comment 🙂 I’d love to chat with you.
Do you enjoy playing board games over the holidays?
My family loves to play board games, though we usually stay too busy to play them except on holidays. So over Christmas this past year, we squeezed in as many games as we could. One of our new favorites was a gift from my husband’s brother, who is a board game aficionado. It is great for our family of five and can easily expand to seven if the grandparents join us for game night. And my favorite part?
IT’S A WESTERN!!!
Bang is a tabletop card game that is kind of like Clue in the kill-before-you-can-be-killed world of the old west. The terms are in Spanish with English subtitles which makes me feel like I’m in early Texas. Everyone has their own secret identity. You’re either the sheriff, an outlaw, a deputy, or the renegade. The sheriff must wear his badge where others can see, but everyone else hides who they are. Outlaws are out to kill the sheriff. The deputy is determined to help the sheriff even though the sheriff doesn’t know who he is. And the renegade? Well, that desperado wants to kill everyone so he can rule the West.
The first couple times we played, our sheriff was none other than Slab the Killer. How’s that for an intimidating name? Makes your imagination spin with possible backstory, doesn’t it? He must have been a vile outlaw before the love of a good woman convinced him to change sides and wear a white hat!
Bullets represent your life. When you use your last one, you’re a goner. The only way to heal yourself and gain more time in the game is to belly up to the bar for that sacred elixir of life – Beer!
Each of the characters have their own special abilities and some fabulous plays on iconic western names like Jesse Jones, Willy the Kid, Calamity Janet, Bart Cassidy, and Kit Carlson just to name a few.
Everyone starts out with the trusty Colt .45, but as the game progresses, you can trade up for weapons such as a Winchester rifle or a Volcanic repeating pistol. A cowboy is only as good as his gun.
If someone plays a Bang card on you, you have to have a Missed card to avoid getting shot. Or you can hide behind a barrel or get on your mustang and ride out of range. You can increase your shooting distance by adding a scope to your weapon. You might spend a turn in jail or take a risk and try to take out your enemies with dynamite. Only problem is, that stuff is unpredictable. You might blow yourself up in the process.
The stagecoach and Well’s Fargo can bring you additional resources, or you can visit the Emporium to pick out something special. The saloon offers beer (life) for everyone, and the Indians offer death. And don’t forget the classic Western play – the duel.
With elements of both cooperation and competition with a little mystery thrown in along with a healthy dose of Western flair, this game was a hit with everyone at our house. After playing, I suddenly found myself hankering for episodes of the Rifleman. Ha!
If you like to play games with family and friends, this is a great one. The more people the better.
Army medic Katya Smith is unable to get past the experience of losing a fellow soldier. She can’t go back to her unit until she can keep from melting down, so she takes a job as a medic for the pro bull riding circuit in an effort to recover her mojo. She doesn’t expect to become attached to the sport or the riders, especially the king rider of them all, Cam Cahill. Cam is a two-time world champion, but those years have taken a toll. It is time to retire, but he can’t imagine himself off the circuit. Katya does wonderful things for his body, but he is not certain he is ready for the things she does for his heart. She has made it plain this is a temp job, but if he could get her to stay, he can see a whole new future. 
If someone plays a Bang card on you, you have to have a Missed card to avoid getting shot. Or you can hide behind a barrel or get on your mustang and ride out of range. You can increase your shooting distance by adding a scope to your weapon. You might spend a turn in jail or take a risk and try to take out your enemies with dynamite. Only problem is, that stuff is unpredictable. You might blow yourself up in the process.
