Comanche Moon – another Larry McMurtry Book is a Mini-Series!

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larrymcmurtrycomanchemooncover.jpgcmcover.jpgYou already know Lonesome Dove is one of my all-time favorite movies.  Even though Dead Man’s Walk didn’t awe me in the same way, I haven’t been as excited about a mini-series or a movie release in a long time as I am about the upcoming Comanche Moon.  Val Kilmer, Steve Zahn, Rachel Griffiths, Karl Urban, Linda Cardellini, and Wes Studi star in this new six-hour mini-series based on the book by Larry McMurtry.  It’s the final chapter in the “Lonesome Dove” saga to be made into a movie, and will be broadcast Sunday, Jan. 13, Tuesday, Jan. 15 and Wednesday, Jan. 16 (9:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT, each night) on the CBS Television Network.  To help you get the time line straight in your head: Chronologically, this story takes place after Dead Man’s Walk, and before Lonesome Dove, and is of course taken from the book by Larry McMurtry.

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Steve Zahn realized he had some big shoes to fill when he was cast as Gus McCrae, who was previously played by Robert Duvall. “Duvall played this incredible character; it was almost as if you were playing Teddy Roosevelt,” Zahn says.

ER fans will recognize Clara, as Linda Cardellini, better known to us as “Sam” on the hospital set.  Talk about some big shoes to fill! Angelica Houston played Gus’s love in Lonesome Dove and a very young Jennifer Garner was cast in Dead Man’s Walk.

zahn.jpgComanche Moon follows Texas Rangers Augustus “Gus” McCrae (Zahn) and Woodrow F. Call (Urban), now in their middle years, as they continue to deal with the ever-increasing tensions of adult life: Gus with his great love, Clara Forsythe (Cardellini), and Call with Maggie Tilton (Banks), the young prostitute who loves him and bears him his son, Newt (Joseph Castanon). Val Kilmer plays Captain Inish Scull, a Yankee aristocrat and hero of the recently concluded Mexican War. Rachel Griffiths plays Inez Scull, the Captain’s sexy wife who doesn’t hesitate to fill her time with other men when he’s away from home. Wes Studi plays Comanche Chief Buffalo Hump.

comanche-moon1.jpgTwo proud but very different men, McCrae and Call enlist with a Ranger troop in pursuit of three outlaws: Buffalo Hump, the great Comanche war chief; Kicking Wolf (Jonathon Joss), the celebrated Comanche horse thief; and Ahumado (Sal Lopez), a deadly Mexican bandit king with a penchant for torture. Assisting the Rangers in their wild chase is the renowned Kickapoo tracker Famous Shoes (David Midthunder). They are joined by their comrades-in-arms, Deets (Keith Robinson), Jake Spoon (Ryan Merriman) and Pea Eye Parker (Troy Baker), in the bitter struggle to protect an advancing western frontier against the defiant Comanches who are determined to defend their territory and their way of life. The Rangers also encounter Buffalo Hump’s violent outcast son, Blue Duck (Adam Beach).  

comanche-moon3.jpgI read the blog of a hairstylist who worked on the set in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The conditions were tough, with wind storms every afternoon and altitude issues. The team had to turn young rodeo riders with crew cuts into 1880s Native Americans.  They did so with wigs, glue, tape and pins.  Black hairspray was needed to cover the highlights of the women. The stylists learned to make scalp locks – braids that hang from the crown of a man’s head. Ten hair stylists and ten to fifteen make up artists worked on hundreds of cast extras in a tent on the side of a mountain. Make up and hairspray billowed out the sides of the tent.  Wish I could see something like that one of these days.  Behind the scenes are my favorite parts of DVDs. 

An article by Wolf Schneider in Cowboys and Indians Magazine says: “By all accounts, the most dramatic sequence in the six-hour miniseries Comanche Moon is going to occur at the end of Night One as more than a hundred Comanche Indians thunder down the plains toward Austin on horseback, hell-bent on revenge. The scene will continue on Night Two with the warriors raiding the Texas town. In real life, many of the Indian riders took buses down from Montana to New Mexico to gallop into the battle bareback with mere rope bridles.”

“It was beautiful and terrifying,” says executive producer and co-screenwriter Diana Ossana. “It’s going to be very powerful—coming over the ridge and into town. And then there’s this great sequence where they’re riding out of town after they’ve captured all the horses. It’s really like nothing you’ve ever seen. The men painted themselves and their horses, and it was part of their getting into the moment and feeling their power.”

comanchemoonvalkilmer.jpgWith scenes like that, Val Kilmer couldn’t resist signing on. He hadn’t done network television before, although he has appeared on HBO’s Entourage and a Gore Vidal-scripted Western for Turner.  One draw of this particular prequel may have been the fact that it was filmed so close to Kilmer’s property in Pecos, New Mexico, that he could arrange for some of the scenes to be shot on his ranch.

Director Simon Wincer and producer Dyson Lovell, who directed and produced Lonesome Dove respectively, served in those roles on Comanche Moon.

CLICK ON THUMBNAIL PHOTOS TO SEE FULL SIZE 

SET YOUR TiVo!  CBS January 13 – 15 – 16

We’ve Come a Long Way, Baby!

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While writing my Christmas novella, McCord’s Destiny, in Western Winter Wonderland, I had to research how the military used homing pigeons to communicate on the frontier.  And since this was a Christmas story, I needed to know how the military–and civilians–celebrated the holiday as well.

That digging for information led me to a fascinating little book which I managed to snag off Amazon (a used copy that, lo and behold, was being sold by a library right here in my hometown.  Who knew?  But I digress.)  A Frontier Army Christmas quickly became one of my favorite research books of all time. 

The book gives a very real glimpse into the lives of the men and women who tried hard to celebrate Christmas not only for themselves, but for their children.  Hundreds of miles away from home and families, stationed in forts out in the middle of nowhere, these hardy souls turned touchingly creative and fashioned special memories never to be forgotten.

Perhaps Elizabeth Custer, her husband the ill-fated general, said it best: 

“Sometimes I think our Christmas on the frontier was a greater event to us than to anyone in the states.  We all had to do so much to make it a success.”

One officer’s wife described her Christmas meal, which proved to be a success due to the efforts of her mailman at Fort Abraham Lincoln in Dakota Territory:

“The refreshments would be sandwiches, cake and candy, lemonade made from the usual citric acid crystals, and of course, ice cream evolved from condensed milk, whipped-up gelatine and the whites of eggs.  The eggs, by the way, wrapped in cotton were brought from Bismarck by the mailman, who, to keep such precious articles from freezing, always carried them inside his buckskin shirt, against his bare breast.”

What a guy, eh?

Faced with frigid temperatures that would freeze thermometers, a lack of trees for decorating, an absence of shops to buy holiday goods, and being miles from a railroad or even a semblance of civilization, commanding officers–and their wives–saw to it the holiday was celebrated, even in the simplest of fashion.   Unused toys were recycled and given to other children to enjoy.  In one instance, a tree was built of spliced tree branches and wire, then plunked upright into a soap box.  Songs were song; treats found; music played.

In other forts, however, more amenities could be found.  Each child was treated the same–from the offspring of the laundress to the lowly soldier on up to the top garrison officer.  A collection would be taken up, and the ladies would see to the details.  On Christmas Eve, even Santa came, and every child thrilled to his gifts–a store-bought toy, an apple and orange, a few pieces of candy, popcorn.

We’ve come a long way, baby.

presents.jpgAs I make list after list and check them twice–yeesh, the gifts seem never-ending, far too complicated.  And expensive!  The grocery bill is staggering.  Time is all but non-existent.Have we created a holiday that has gone way overboard?  Has the commercialism squelched the true meaning of Christmas?  Have we been so immersed in buy, buy, buy and do, do, do that we’ve forgotten the simplicity of Christmases past?presents-3.jpg

No doubt about it.

Yet it remains my favorite time of year.  The lights, the garlands, the music are a delight to behold.  I’m looking forward to those special cookies, festive drinks, and yummy hors d’oevres that I eat only at this time of year.  It’ll be great fun to see my family together yet again–all 44 of us–the one time of year when we can manage it.   We’ll have five straight nights of family get-togethers–dinners, holiday walks, games and laughter.  Then everyone heads home and life returns to normal.

Yep, we’ve come a long way from those starkly simple Christmases.  And maybe that’s not such a bad thing, after all.

Do you agree?  Let us know your thoughts and experiences. Merry Christmas, dear friends! 

Guest Blogger: Joyce Henderson

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joyce-henderson.jpgI’m thrilled to be here on Petticoat & Pistols. The fillies milling around in this corral are some of my favorite writers. J

For those who don’t know me or my work, I wrote for 20 years prior to first publication in 2005. You can get a little insight into me if you go to my web site, which I constructed myself, ugh, and keep up after a fashion, www.joycehendersonauthor.com That said, what comes to mind out of my long years of experience to talk about here? Family, I guess, and some of the stories behind why I write Historical Native American Westerns. My maternal great-grandparents migrated to Central Texas in 1900, from Tennessee and Georgia.

I don’t know much about my biological father’s relatives. Although, his family is rumored to have some Native American blood mixed in somewhere back in history, but I’ve never been able to pin down anything definitive in that regard. Mother escaped a bad marriage by hauling me out a window, literally, when I was three years old, and packing me off to Southern California where I grew up.

My roots are firmly planted in the 60-acres of rocky Texas soil my maternal great-grandparents farmed. Not having a lot of money, they couldn’t hire much help. So what did folks do in those days to get cheap labor to clear trees and stumps, dislodge those rocks, and build a house that stood until 1980?

William Lamar Yancy Bond, March 26, 1861 – August 8, 1931
Bethana Ada Morgan Bond, October 18, 1887 – August 19, 1962
Nuptials photo August 16, 1885joyces-grandparents.JPG

In the case of my intrepid ancestors, William Lamar Yancy Bond and Bethany Ada Morgan Bond proceeded to grow their own farm workers—twelve youngin’s. I marveled at my great-grandma, who was in a wheelchair the last 25 years of her life because a broken foot wouldn’t heal (diabetes), and wondered how she managed to birth strapping children. She was all of 4′ 10 or 11″ and weighed maybe 90 pounds soaking wet.

On the other hand, my great-grandpa was a barrel-chested six-footer—and answered to that little squirt he married. Yessiree, he sure did! I think most women who migrated west were tough little ladies, or they never would have made the journey. So many survived and even flourished with few amenities, and most certainly fought the miseries of dirt, rain, biting wind and snow.

The Bonds built a three-room house, with outhouse, a small barn for the plow horse and milk cow, and a chicken pen right next to the barn. They had a few pigs, and the kids tended a small herd of cattle that was mostly raised for beef.

I don’t know how, or from whom they got to help them dig a well, maybe grandpa and the boys did it themselves. But water was piped into the side of the kitchen, and a hand pump was situated over a sink. Voila, indoor plumbing! 

The third room in the house was like a barracks along the side of the kitchen and the room with the fireplace that served as the living room. In those days, grandma and her daughters made all their clothes and bedding. And that meant, a quilt frame was forever part of the main room, suspended from the ceiling with ropes, and could be lowered to accommodate the women sitting on either side to quilt. Woe be to the girl who failed to sew tiny, neat stitches in those quilts!  

People of today think cigarettes are disgusting. Um, my great-grandma and my grandma both dipped snuff. Now there’s a disgusting habit! And you know, my great-grandma never owned a toothbrush. Eeww! It’s true. She used the burnt end of a wooden match stick to clean her teeth. I think she had every tooth in her head the day she died.

There was a narrow stream not too far from the house where the kids and grandpa, more often than not, bathed. Winter forced them all inside to the round tin tub that grandma used year-round.

They had one luxury, or what might be considered a luxury. A chiming wall clock hung just inside the front door. It was great-grandpa’s pride and joy, I guess. Interestingly, he died at, as I recall, 6:10 in the evening. The clock stopped at the precise moment of his death and never ran again.

You may now understand why I write about farm life. For me, the mid 1800’s to early 1900 hold a never-ending fascination and, specifically, my family’s history. How many of you have tales about your family history to tell?  

the-edge-of-the-stars.jpgFrom those who leave a comment, I will draw a name and send that person signed copies of  my two 2005 releases, WALKS IN SHADOW and WRITTEN ON THE WIND, both now out of stock. A second name drawn will receive a signed copy of TO THE EDGE OF THE STARS.

Check back here to see who won, and then email jhenderson2@comcast.net your address so I can send out the books right away.   

…Wearin’ a Dress

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Wearin’ a Dress

 Rogers Astaire  Fred Astaire is one of the most acclaimed dancers in American history. Ginger Rogers, too, but she never earned the fame Astaire did. I heard Ginger Rogers said, “I did everything Fred did, only I had to do it backward, in high heels, wearing a dress.

           And yet Astaire was the big star. 

           And that brings me to Sacajawea. Yes, there is going to be something about the west in this, it’s NOT about ballroom dancing.

This teenager, age estimated at 17-years-old, accompanied this group of rugged soldiers all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Saved their lives more than once, probably had to do all the cooking (oh, maybe not) and she did it with a baby strapped on her back wearin’ a dress.

            But do they call it the Sacajawea Expedition? No-o-o-o-o-o!

            I couldn’t even find for sure how to spell her name because Lewis and Clark kept journals and spelled it differently, phonetically I suppose. Sacajawea didn’t speak English. How could she tell them how to spell her own name? She wouldn’t have known where to begin spelling it.

           I read the book Sacajawea by Anna L. Waldo years ago and I just loved that story of the young woman, sold into slavery, one of two wives to this…by most accounts, abusive drunken French fur trader, Charbonneau, leading Lewis and Clark through the Rocky Mountains.

           Man, I think I’ve got it hard when my car’s air conditioning goes on the fritz.

           The Lewis and Clark expedition recruited Sacagawea’s husband, to accompany them westward, expecting to make use of Sacagawea’s ability to speak to the Shoshone. The expedition expected that they would need to trade with the Shoshone for horses. Sacagawea spoke no English, but she could translate to Hidatsa to Charbonneau, who could translate to French for Francois Labiche, a member of the expedition, who could translate into English for Lewis and Clark. It had to be like a multi-cultural game of Telephone, passing the words back and forth through those translations.

             They really wanted Sacagawea, even more than Charbonneau, yet he got hired, and you know he got the money.

             Accompanied by her infant son, Sacagawea set out with the expedition for the west.

             This reminds me of an episode of Walker Texas Ranger.

              Have you ever noticed that when someone is insanely tough, the writers have to weaken him before they bring the enemy in. Superman and Kryptonite? John Wayne with a bullet lodged in his spine. Walker and oh, say, an army with automatic weapons.

Walker’s been bitten by one hundred scorpions. He shakes that off and saves the day, then collapses near death afterward. If he’s not weakened (and Sacagawea doesn’t have a baby strapped on her back and wearin’ a dress) it’s just not a fair fight.

Her memory of Shoshone trails proved valuable, according to some sources; according to others, she did not serve as a guide to the trails so much as to find useful foods and medicines along the way. Her presence as an Indian woman with a baby helped to convince Indians that this party of whites was friendly. And her translation skills, however indirect from Shoshone to English, were also invaluable at several key points.

The only woman on the trip, she also cooked, foraged for food, and sewed, mended and cleaned the clothes of the men. Yes, the expedition members hunted for food, too. But that means mainly they shot deer. Once they were crossing the Rockies in treacherous winter weather, her knowledge of edible plants saved the day. To their credit, Lewis and Clark treated Sacagawea as a valuable member of the party, even giving her and York, Clark’s enslaved black servant, a full vote in deciding where to spend the winter of 1805-6. It would be more than a century later when women were given the right to vote. 

So she fed them, sheltered them from hostile Indians and led them through the

Rockies. And she did all this with a baby on her back, wearin’ a dress, just to make it fair.

Sacagwea Coin

In recent years more has been written about Sacagawea and the dollar coin honoring her helped everyone see her contribution.

I’ve thought it would be an interesting series of books to write about the women who were standing right beside the men making history.

           Daniel Boone was married, Davy Crocket, too, and Kit Carson. Who were these women? What were their lives like? Often they got left behind, but even so, many were left in unsettled places. They seem like fertile ground for novels and a part of the largely untold story of taming the west, wearin’ a dress.

              What historical western women, real or fictional, most interest you? Who would make a good character in a novel? How can we get their stories told?

The WILD Bunch

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cowboy_wadeneff.jpgSorry I’m late this morning!  We had a storm and power outage last night, which obliterated my first draft of this post, and kept me off line and off my computer until this morning. 

I’m currently working on the third and final book in my Wild trilogy and with MAVERICK WILD just three short weeks from mass release, my thoughts have been monopolized by my Wild bunch. My blog topic this morning is going to be a comparison of my Wild heroes – three very different archetypes, some of whom were more difficult to write than others. Something this series has taught me is to always look ahead—especially when developing secondary characters who could possibly take on a lead role in their own stories. I get asked quite often open-range.jpgwhat draws me to a hero and what are my favorite characteristics in a sexy hero.  My answer is always his smile, a telltale sign of his ability to bring humor, hope and a positive spin to an otherwise hopeless or dreadful situation . MUSTANG WILD started with a vision of Tucker Morgan lounged at a poker table, his lips tipped in a crooked grin, a mischievous glint in his eyes. That smile didn’t let me down–he proved to be a fun hero to chase across the page.

Despite my personal preference of hero, not every hero is quick to smile.  That could not be more true than with Chance Morgan, Tucker’s straight-faced twin brother. In MUSTANG WILD, Tucker describes his twin as ‘truly my other half. My boring half.’. Compared to Tucker’s playful nature, there MAVERICK WILDcould be some truth to that statement from an outside point of view—which was all fine and dandy when Chance was secondary back-up to his light-hearted brother. But as a hero…I was suddenly asking myself, “What have I created?” I was crazy about Tucker, and Chance is nothing like his twin–nor did he have any desire to emulate his brother. How was I going to take this silent pillar of strength, caution and conviction and make him loveable? I had heard about this technique of sitting down with your characters for a little interrogation…or interview, if you will.  So I figured I’d give that a shot with Chance. We sat across a table and stared at one another for hours…and hours, but I’m telling y’all, he was a tough one to crack. The man did nothing but stare and fidget. One cool thing about being an author is having telepathic powers *g* — the ability to get into our characters minds, and that was where I began to unravel this hero, to find his humor and wit, and the bruised heart he guarded like Fort Knox. In MAVERICK WILD, Chance doesn’t suddenly become chatty or playful–he’s his usual solid, silent self, and it’s through the introduction of his heroine that Chance is forced to remember a time when he was whole. A time when he used to laugh and find some joy amid the daily struggles of life. 

I’m a true believer in opposites attract. My heroes and heroines, while they do share certain kissing-couple.jpgcharacteristics that give them a sense of understanding with one another, they are generally at opposite ends of the personality spectrum. Watching them spark, clash and finally meld is great fun for me.  In MUSTANG WILD Tucker is wild and reckless,  whereas Skylar is wild by her own right, but in a strictly no-nonsense, get-the-job-done sort of way. Together they bridge the gap in one another and bring out the best in each other.  Chance needed a heroine who was as soft and gentle as he was hard, and Cora Mae Tindale is the epitome of feminine primness in a woman—everything Chance believes he hates in a woman. As he discovers, Cora Mae is hardly a pushover and far from hapless.  She posses every bit of his strength and determination, something he identifies with.  And for every one word that Chance utters, Cora Mae prattles off fifty.  Because these two had so much shared hurt and history, MAVERICK WILD turned out to be my first real emotionally-driven story.  While there’s certainly plenty of external troubles these two have to deal with, their biggest journey is finding a way into each others hearts.  

The hero of INTO THE WILD (working title for Wild 3) is Garret Daines, Skylar’s younger brother, and he’s shaping up to be a good brad-pitt-photograph-c11796768.jpgblend of Tucker and Chance.  He has a light-hearted nature that’s visible in MUSTANG WILD and still strong in the beginning of MAVERICK WILD, but by the start of his own book, his light-hearted outlook has been dampened by heartache in his recent past. Growing up in the shadow of Tucker and Chance hasn’t been easy on his ego and he’s out to prove he’s every bit the man they are and is ready to fight the world to prove it. He’ll have to, seeing as mother-nature’s winter fury and ruthless cattle rustlers are out to take all he has. Readers will catch a glimpse of Garret’s wild-woman-to-be in MAVERICK WILD.  But Garret was raised by a wild woman, so no matter the snark and attitude this mountain recluse throws his way, he’s along for the ride–and he’s going to fight for his woman whether she wants him to or not. This book promises to be a rip-roarin’ ride as Garret and Maggie spark, clash and ultimately meld  🙂 Mustang Wild

For anyone who missed the first book in the Wild series, let me know in your post today and you’ll be entered in a drawing tonight to win a signed copy of MUSTANG WILD!  

So, do you have a favorite hero archetype?  The warrior? The romantic? The jokester? A certain feature or characteristic that really draws you to a hero?  

A Character By Any Other Name

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My stories don’t begin to unfold until I’ve named my characters and named them correctly.  How do I know if a name is right?  I can’t explain it.  If their name is right, I can see them.  I can hear them talk.  I can create scenes and situations for them.  If a name is wrong, there is no story. 

baby_name_book.jpgWhenever I get an idea for a character or a plot or theme, I grab my binder with my worksheets, a notebook and a fun pen, a cup of coffee or tea, and then make myself comfy on the sofa.  I use a story grid to flesh out my characters’ goals and motivations and the points of the story.  But I use a stack of books and folders to find their names. 

I keep lists of everything, so of course I have lists of names I want to use. Most important for me is that their name sound like a real person, and a real person I’d want to know.  I must be a name that I won’t mind typing 400 times.  I just checked The Lawman’s Bride, and I used Clay’s name 403 times. 

26names.gifSometimes I fall in love with a name, but it’s tough to type quickly, so what I do is create an autocorrect for it in Word.  For example, if the heroine’s name is Elisabeth Ann, I create an auto correct so that each time I type in elsb+spacebar, it changes to the name I want. Where do I get my lists of names?  Lots of places, but mostly from “research meetings.”  I’m an avid movie watcher and also check out the new season TV shows. 

If I sit with a notebook and a fun pen (notice how pens are required to be special?) I can call it work.  So I watch every line of the credits and write down names I like.  If I’m watching a movie, I’ll take notes regarding what worked for me and what didn’t.  It’s research. 

pen.jpgI save graduation programs and baby name books. What else is important when choosing a name?  Sometimes nationality.  Sometimes connotation: I probably wouldn’t name a nuclear physicist Tiffany.  No offense to any nuclear physicists named Tiffany, but it just wouldn’t work for most of us.  Tiffany is a teenager’s best friend.  On the other hand, you can go against stereotype, for instance naming an enormous woman Daisy or a tiny dog Rambo. 

It’s confusing to the reader if two characters’ names are similar or their names start with the same letter.  Personally, I get lost if a writer does that.  I catch that first letter and if there are two similar, my brain doesn’t associate it quickly enough, so I constantly rethink and recheck to see who this person is and am jerked out of the story.  Here’s how I prevent that confusion and others with names: I keep a 5×7 index card with all the characters’ names on it.  At the bottom I write the alphabet.  Every time I use a letter in a first or last name I put a strike through a letter.  Of course I often use a letter two or three times, but some are for last names and others for secondary characters that won’t be confused. 

list.jpgI also create a “style sheet” for each book.  This is a page or two that I turn in with the manuscript.  It contains a list of all the character names and all the places, streets, businesses, proper nouns.  This reference helps me in creation of the story and in turn helps the copy editor.  Sure comes in mighty handy when I do a sequel! 

Once or twice I’ve gotten hung up in the creation of my story in the planning stages or first chapters.  Their name was nagging at me, because I never was quite convinced on it.  So I changed it and the story moved on. Once when I had revised a story proposal, taking out the hero and replacing him, I was completely stumped for a name and couldn’t develop the guy.  I held a contest to name him.  As soon as I saw the particular name, I knew it was the right one.  With his name in place, the character sprang to life. 

small_typogenerator_1168875275.jpgMy current hero and heroine for my work in progress, titled A Hero’s Embrace, are Jonas Black and Eliza Jane Sutherland.  Jonas was a trail rider, did a stint in the Army, and now runs a saloon, a hotel and sells employment vouchers to itinerant workers.  Eliza Jane loved working in her father’s brick factory, but never earned his approval or recognition.  When her sister took ill, she left her position to care for her.  Her sister is Jenny Lee.  Can’t you just see her?  Frail and sickly and not wanting to be a burden. 

Royce Dunlap is married to Jenny Lee, but he wants Eliza Jane and the majority of shares in the company.  Shades of Snidely Whiplash? Then there’s Marshal Warren Haglar, Nora Cahill, the helpful neighbor, Miss Fletcher the schoolteacher and Bonnie Jacobson who runs the tea room. 

Can you guess who Luther Vernon works for?  Who do you suppose Tyler is? 

silver.jpgI don’t like frivolous names or names that are difficult to pronounce.  Even if I’m not reading aloud, I want to be able to know how to “think” it correctly.  How about you?  Is there anything you find distracting about a particular name or spelling of a name?  Do you like names plain or exotic? 

Did you ever think about how much work goes into naming an entire cast of characters?   

And don’t get me started on naming a horse!

Today, I’m putting all the comments into a cowboy hat and drawing a name.  The person whose name I draw will choose a name for a secondary character in A Hero’s Embrace and receive an advance reading copy.

The Tool of Casanova’s Trade

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casanova3.jpgLast month, I wrote about how women through the ages have used a variety of strange and not-so-strange contraceptive methods.  Today, it’s the guys’ turn.

In a word–condoms.

Following are a few fascinating facts about them.  Bear in mind, they came into use more as a way for the man to defend himself against disease than to keep his mate from getting pregnant.  Birth control was mostly considered the woman’s responsibility.

 **Egyptians in the Twelfth Dynasty donned them as protection against insect bites and tropical diseases, as well as for a show of social status and as an amulet to promote fertility.

**In the 1560’s, Gabriel Fallopius (discoverer of–you guessed it!–Fallopian tubes) wrote of men wearing linen sheaths soaked in an herbal concoction to prevent syphilis.

 **Early 18th century condoms were made from oiled silk, fish bladders, and the intestines of goats, lambs and calves.

casanova.jpg **Casanova, the legendary Italian lover, inspected each condom before use by blowing into it balloon-style to make sure it didn’t deflate or burst.  He then went on to moisten each one by dunking it into the canal to ensure a tight fit.

Due to the illegality of contraceptive manufacturing and advertising (remember the Comstock laws I told you about?), condom entrepreneurs set up shop in the kitchens and back rooms of emigrants, women and Jews.  They found their trade lucrative in spite of their lack of professional credibility.

Despite doing a brisk business in their trade, the contraband condoms were far from perfect:

**The skins were often thick and smelly, made worse because they were rinsed, dried, powdered and then reused until they cracked or tore.

**Lower quality skins were hand-stitched, which resulted in uneven and bulky seams that irritated genitalia during use.

**On the other hand, higher-quality condoms were chemically treated, which left skin welts and lesions.

pinkribbon.jpgMaybe you didn’t know:

**Early condoms were securied onto their wearers with pink ribbons–probably to appeal to the female.  Rings were also used to hold them in place.

**George Bernard Shaw declared the rubber condom (thanks to the accidental genius of Charles Goodyear in 1839 who discovered how to make rubber elastic and water-proof) as “the greatest invention of the nineteenth century.”  Evidently, he placed lower importance on the invention of the telephone, which occurred about the same time.

**Urban butchers, defying the Comstock laws, provided city-dwellers with intestine casings, of which one animal alone could yield dozens of condoms.

In the 1870’s, the devices were readily available from mail-order houses and first-class druggists through cleverly-worded descriptions to avoid prosecution.  (I always love the terminology from that era.  Where did they come up with these names?)  A few I’ve found:

Male Pouch

Male Shields

Capotes

Machine

Love’s Preservative

And yes, condoms were available in brothels all over the world, from the classiest French parlor house to the primitive cribs on the American frontier.

Speaking of names, and brothels, and the prostitutes who inhabited them, the women took on a variety of nicknames to protect themselves and their families back East from their disreputable occupation.  Here’s a few of the more amusing, and definitely less romantic, ones I’ve read:

Crazy Horse Lil

Big Nose Kate

Squirrel-Tooth Annie

Rowdy Kate

Madame Moustache

Mustang Mae

Rocking Chair Emma

Sorrel Mike

So that wraps up my series of posts on Old West prostitutes.  Are you up to playing a little game?  Let’s name a fictional soiled dove by using your favorite pet’s name and your favorite vegetable.

Winner of the funniest name will receive an autographed copy of Western Winter Wonderland!    Or just drop in and let us know your thoughts!

A Desert Christmas

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Yard decorations are already going up in my neighborhood. Elaborate ones. We have a contest for the very best, and the competition is steep. We have moving carousels, toy trains, herds of reindeer, Santas by the dozens, and lights galore. I’m a Grinch with one  paltry angel. If I have time, I’ll add some lights to my crepe myrtle outside. That’s always the plan,but other matters usually get in the way. I’m the neighborhood disgrace.All of which bring me back to the book I blogged about several weeks ago, the book written by my uncle about homestead life in Arizona in the very early years of the 1900’s.Oh, how the celebration of Christmas has changed!  Here’s the tale of one western Christmas.

My uncle was thirteen at the time, my father a baby. My grandfather had taken his wife and children from Minnesota to Arizona’s southern desert to homestead. He and my uncle built a house in an area with very little water. But hope sprung eternal.

So in the days before their first desert Christmas, my grandfather and uncle decided the family needed a Christmas tree. Unlike Minnesota, evergreens were not abundant in the desert.

The plan, according to my uncle, was to take the horse-drawn wagon – along with four of the six children – “up toward Parker’s ranch, out Duncan-way, and see if we can find an honest-to-goodness Christmas tree.” Parker’s ranch was ten or so miles toward the western horizon away.

They started out in the morning. “It was two or three hours before we saw even a sign of a spruce, but we journeyed on after enjoying our lunch. The higher climbed, the more grand the view behind us.”

After another hour of climbing, they came to a stand of spruce of various shapes and sizes. “We ran around in circles trying to find the one tree that we could all agree on. Dad set about cutting it down. He gave each of us a chance to take a stroke with the axe so we could all lay claim to cutting our first Christmas tree.”

They returned as the day ‘was about spent.” My grandmother had a hot dinner waiting, “but not before we had propped up the stringy looking spruce. She said it was better than nothing and would look okay when it was properly trimmed.

“That was the next project, and we spent the next two weeks stringing popcorn, making daisy chains, paper windmills and stars . . . ”

On Christmas evening, “Our stockings, holes and all, were always hung from over a kitchen chair, but this year we had a real fireplace to hang them from and a real mantle, and our three pairs of stockings were securely tacked to the mantle, ready for Santa Claus.

Presents could not be opened until after breakfast Christmas morning, “so we hastily gulped down our fried corn meal mush, a slice of salt pork and a glass of milk, and tore into our stockings filled with ten cent toys, an orange, some nuts and gaily decorated candies.

By then, the Christmas tree had been gaily decorated with the popcorn strings, green and red paper daisy chains and cranberry strings. “A few candles in old clip-on candle holders had been carefully placed on the limbs of the dry, explosive tree and with a big bucket of water nearby, Dad made a big event of the lighting of the candles. With a watchful eye on the candles, we sat and enjoyed the lighted tree.

“With Mother at the piano, we sat around the tree and sang all of the old favorites – ‘Joy to the World,’ ‘Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem,’ and, of course, ‘She I wait’ which had nothing to say about Christmas, but was an expression of our outpouring of love for the dearest Mother kids ever had.”

“After presents and songs out of the way, we sat down to a scrumptious dinner of roast quail with plenty of mashed potato, gravy, squash, cranberries, hot bread and Mother’s delicious steamed plum pudding, a feast for kings.”

It was the first and last Christmas in the house in the desert. Without water, the farm was destined for disaster, and the family moved into a nearby town where my grandfather got a “real job” and the children could attend school.

But that Christmas in the desert remained in all their hearts. The stories about that year are endless.

It sounds like a smashing Christmas, and I find myself longing for those days gone past.   No huge pile of presents with  limited  life. No mad dashes to the mall on Christmas Eve to grab a last minute gift. No contests to see who can outdo the neighbor in the number of lights in the yard. 

I must admit I like the neighborhood lights, but then I think about that lone cabin on the desert with the spindly Christmas tree and stockings with holes in them, and a family gathered around a piano and hearth fire and wonder if we aren’t really missing something fine.

Our Guest Kathryn Albright: Dolls in the 1800s

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kathyrn-albright.jpgThanks for having me here!  This is such a fun website.

I often tease my mother that she never grew up—she still plays with dolls. My mother is a collector and also a doll restoration artist. Years ago she apprenticed to a woman who later retired and sold the business and tools to her. People brought in their broken dolls, modern or antique, and she knew just what to do to fix them–whether it involved restringing, a new wig, gluing in eyes, or adding a new limb.

I remember returning home late at night after a babysitting job or date and feel eyes staring at me from every corner of the house–rather disconcerting, if not down-right frightening. (And don’t even get me started on the boxes of eyes and limbs in the basement!)

frenchdolldress.jpgIn my debut book, The Angel and the Outlaw, two dolls play a part in getting the hero and heroine together. A china doll from 1860 and a paper mache doll from 1850.  I am fortunate that my mother happens to have two dolls that fit my story to a “T”, even to the point of a lovely green dress on the French doll which matches a description in my story!

Manufactured dolls of this era were generally paper mache or china or bisque. They had an adult face rather than a baby face. (Dolls with a baby face weren’t available until 1910.) The soft cloth bodies were filled with sawdust, horsehair or cotton. The hairstyles reflected the current styles of the day. Both of these dolls have “flat-top” hairdos that were popular during the Civil War. The heads were often sold by themselves, and a mother would then make the body of the doll and sew the clothes. 

frenchdollclose.jpgThe French china doll was popular from 1860 to 1900. It cost approximately one dollar at that time. The head and shoulder plate, along with the hands and feet are china (with painted-on shoes) and the body is made of cloth. This doll has a painted garter on the left leg.

germandolldress.jpgThe German-made paper mache doll is older with cracks along the bust line. She has soft leather arms and hands (with separate fingers!) and leather shoes that can be taken off. As sedate as she looks here, she has lovely undergarments so I thought she’d like to show off her fancy corset *g*.

Growing up, the doll I remember playing with the most was a Barbie doll (along with her boyfriend Ken and her younger sister Skipper). Usually, there was a ranch involved because I loved horses and had several Breyer horse figurines. When my sons came along, I remember the craze for Cabbage Patch Kids (which thankfully I never had to stand in line for since my boys were into sports.) I’d love to hear about your favorite doll—now or when you were younger.  

If you post today, I’ll enter your name in a drawing for a signed copy of my debut book. And since it is December, I’ll also include a special tree ornament of the lighthouse where my story takes place.

For more information, please visit my website at www.kathrynalbright.com.

Thanks to all the great gals at Petticoats and Pistols for having me here. It’s been fun!  

T-I-I-I-M-B-E-R!!!

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lumber 2

I absolutely LOVE research.  I had a blast digging into the history of Sierra Mountain lumber camps for the setting of my July Harlequin western recently titled THE GUNSLINGER’S BRIDE.  I had an interest in logging camps long before I ever started writing.  There’s quite a few old camp towns and even an old working logging camp railroad in our area.  Every year we take our boys for a train ride through the tall timbers and glean new tidbits on the lives of the men who felled those giant trees–a hard and hazardous occupation. 

The lumberjack lifestyle required two sets of clothes – a set of work cloths he put on in the morning and a set of dry clothes he put on in the evening, because no matter the time of year, a logger always came in from the job dripping wet. He was either wet with sweat, rain, snow–or a combination of all three.  Timber crews were a rough-and-tumble lot and employed crew foreman’s called bull heads — men with fists heavy-hitting enough to enforce strict sets of rules every man was expected to follow for their safety and the safety of others. A slip of an ax or the wrong move with a saw blade could easily lead to a man’s death, as he’d often bleed out before any kind of medical attention could be sought.  Check out the picture below–see the planks of wood these tree-fellers are standing on? 

Timber

These thin, springy platforms were shimmed into the trees, sometimes ten to fifteen feet or MORE up a tree, creating a precarious perch as fellers swung axes, chopping away at the trunk.  Many a timberman fell to their deaths, giving these planks the nickname “widow-makers“.

Most lumber camp crews were made up largely of immigrant workers–vagabonds and scamps as many were called, men without any real roots and lumber camps offered something other jobs didn’t — loggers could always count on a warm dry bed and a hot hearty meal after a grueling day of work.  Mealtime was the main event in any camp.  It was often said that a lumber camp was only as good as its chef.  A meager crew was a sure sign of a bad cook.  If a logger didn’t like the food, he’d move on to the next camp.

Logging 1

With camps scattered all over the Sierra’s, camps competed with one another by trying to hire the best chefs, often recruiting well-known chefs from San Francisco and other major cities.  While the men were well fed and could eat until they were full, meal-time also had strict sets of rules–usually requiring the men have assigned seating, and no talking allowed–this allowed for faster service, and the last thing a man wanted was to tick off the cook and get tossed from the cook house.

As often happens, much of the research absorbed during the planning stages of a book doesn’t make it into the final version.  Juniper and Lily seemed far too busy chasing bandits all over the mountain to really stop and smell the wood chips.  While readers will get a glimpse into the life of a timberman,  there wasn’t a ton of room to detail all the goings-on of a lumber camp that I find fascinating.  But research is never wasted—and who knows, maybe there will be a lumberjack hero in my future.  Although, for now, I have moved on from the Sierra’s and am knee-deep in research and snowdrift from the Wyoming blizzard of 1886  🙂

To celebrate the arrival of my author copies for my third western (woohoo), one of today’s comment MAVERICKposters will win a copy of MAVERICK WILD!

Petticoats & Pistols