The Old West with Kerby Jackson

Six Guns & Shootouts

2009-06-23T11:58:00.000-07:00

Submissions for “Six Guns & Shootouts” have been rolling in steadily and the first volume is now filled and is entering the editorial stage. If all goes as planned, it should be available sometime in August. I also have a few submissions of full length novels that look promising. The overall quality of the submitted work is quite high and there are some really top notch tales in the group.

Meanwhile, though SG&S #2 and #3 are filling up, there is still space for both western fiction and non fiction. Those interested in submitting their work should visit:

http://www.western-stories.com/six-guns-westerns/six-guns-westerns.html

(Authors who have had their work accepted should expect an information packet on the release, contracts, etc. in the coming days.)

For Six Guns & Shootouts #1 I have accepted the following works:

“Who Killed Thomas Godwin?” a really wonderful article by David Dyas that discusses the killing of a Tehachapi, California lawman by the name of Thomas Godwin. Godwin was shot down in a Tehachapi saloon in 1876 by a career badman using the alias of James Hayes. Also included are some nice photos.

In a “A Deep-Dyed Villian”, Celia Hayes details the little known exploits of J.P. Waldrip, who was among the leadership of a Pro-Confederate group known as The Hanging Band. Waldrip and his cronies terrorized German immigrants in the Texas Hill Country during the American Civil War for their lack of “patriotism”.

Jannet L. Grady's “The Debonaire Killer” discusses the exploits of dandy gunman and accomplished train robber, Marion Hedgepath.

To round out the non-fiction in this volume, comes my article “The Wild One” which follows the escapades of gunslick, horse thief and all around hard-drinking, hell-raiser Hank Vaughan who terrorized (and no doubt also entertained) the population of Eastern Oregon's High Desert Country during the late 1800's.

Meanwhile, the western fiction begins with Edie Amos' highly entertaining tale of how a few over zealous cowpokes raised a big stink in a small Arizona town in “The Election Day at San Simon”.

Mark Mellon introduces us to Heck Pargrew, a fella the city fathers should have maybe left well alone in “Buzzards Circle Dogtown”.

Karlton Douglas' “Commanche Justice” shows us that people are not always as they may appear.

Patricia Probert Gott takes us for a gorgeous ride through Old Wyoming along with a few dudes from out East in her descriptive short, “Cowgirl Up”.

In Paul Dellinger's “Bring Me The Head of Curly Bill”, visiting dime novelist Marcus Stewart is looking all over Tombstone for proof of the death of “Curly Bill” Brocious. Some of Curly Bill's former associates are not exactly what you might call helpful.

Joe L. Murr's “Dead Ears” leads us along the vengeance trail as a young man seeks to avenge the death of his family.

A mysterious man in gray teaches a local hard case a lesson he'll never forget in Teel James Glenn's “The Ghostmaker's Lesson”.

Matt Casey gives us a slightly different take on how to get away with highway robbery in his “Faking it to Omaha”.

In “Once A Ranger” by James J. Griffin, we learn that we should always respect our elders.

In Kit Prate's haunting tale “Widow”, a woman grants a final wish to her husband as a condemned Indian stands ready to meet his maker at a gallows. (This story was originally published in "Far West" in 1980).

Evan Lewis spins us a very fine re-telling of an old Texas tall-tale in “The Devil and Strap Buckner”.

In “Trail to Nowhere”, David A. Hardy tells us a rich tale that reads like a piece of real Texas history.

And finally, courtesy of his estate's agent (Mr. Will Murray), I am pleased to be able to present an unpublished western story by pulp legend Lester Dent (1904-1959) who is best known as the creator of “Doc Savage”. During the pulp era, Dent was widely regarded as the most successful author of the day. Mr. Murray states that “Snare Savvy” was probably written sometime in the 1930's when Dent was at the height of his career.

Needless to say, I am really looking forward to seeing the release of Six Guns & Shootouts Vol. #1 in the near future.

Regards,

Kerby

P.S. - My apologies to those authors who have sites that are not linked. If I missed anyone in a net search, please send me your link.

Six Guns Westerns update

2009-06-08T15:50:00.000-07:00

I am really pleased to announce that my Six Guns Westerns project is really coming together.

Guidelines for "Six Guns and Shootouts" now appear on Ralan.com. Check it out here.

Meanwhile the submissions are really starting to roll in and so far, the quality looks pretty good. I am really looking forward to getting the first volume out there.

If you are interested in submitting your own work, check out the guidelines here.

Western Small Press: SIX GUNS WESTERNS

2009-06-05T14:06:00.000-07:00

Six Guns Westerns is devoted to keeping Western fiction alive and well in the 21st century.

We are currently accepting submissions of western fiction, as well as non-fiction pertaining to the Old West, for our new anthology series SIX GUNS & SHOOTOUTS.

SIX GUNS is a periodic print anthology of Western fiction, interspersed with related non fiction. During 2009, we intend to publish at least two volumes of SIX GUNS & SHOOTOUTS and possibly as many as four.

If you would like to submit your work to SIX GUNS & SHOOTOUTS, please consider the following guidelines:

Genre: Western fiction set West of the Mississippi River between 1830 and 1915. We are seeking well written, short fiction with historical accuracy, compelling characters and fast moving plots. There are no word limitations and no set themes beyond the fact that your submission must be a Traditional Western. (Sorry, no space cowboys or time travelers, though we will accept stories with a supernatural element. Tales of ghosts were popular in the Old West). No excessive language, sex or gore beyond what is necessary to define the characters and to further the story. We are also seeking related non-fiction. Reprints are okay. We have no word count maximums.

Pay: If your story/article is accepted for publication in SIX GUNS & SHOOTOUTS, we are currently paying one contributor copy, plus an equal share of royalties from the profits of each sale.

Response Time: We try to respond to submissions as soon as possible, usually within 2 to 4 weeks.

Format: Please send your submission in .rtf format or in the body of an e-mail. We cannot accept submissions in MS Works. You know the drill: submissions should be proof read and free of spelling or punctuation errors, etc.

Longer Works: At this time, we are also accepting submissions of longer works in the guise of western fiction ranging from 30,000 to 40,000 words (about 120 to 140 pages), as well non fiction books (no word maximum), for stand alone publication. Short story collections or a mix of both fiction and non fiction are also welcome.

For Western fiction, we want fast moving stories with historical accuracy, believable settings and compelling characters.

Non fiction submissions can cover a wide range of topics, including local interest, just so long as it's about the period of the Old West. Photographs are considered a plus for non fiction projects.

At this time, we pay an advance of $75, plus five copies of your book for longer works upon publication. We also offer a royalty rate of 15% of all profits.

In addition to our titles being listed on Amazon.com and other online sellers, we will also actively be seeking brick and mortar distributors of our books, mostly in the guise of Western interest and book stores.

Please e-mail your submissions or queries to: kerby@western-stories.com

Consolidation

2009-06-05T13:57:00.000-07:00

Some of you know that I had so many blogs that it was difficult to keep up with them all.

Needless to say, I've decided to consolidate all of these into a single blog and have moved all of the most important entries from the others to this one.

For those of you who stop in, I'd be much obliged if you hit that little "Follow"
button at the top.

~ Kerby
www.kerbyjackson.com

Western Paperbacks: Written in Blood: The Further Exploits of Hayden Tilden

2009-06-05T13:55:00.002-07:00

Written in Blood: The Further Exploits of Hayden Tilden
by J. Lee Butts

Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Berkley (February 3, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0425226301
ISBN-13: 978-0425226308

On a late night trip to Walmart to pick up another pair of rubber boots for doing some prospecting, I decided to check out the ample selection of westerns that our local Walmart carries. As is my habit, I generally grab at least two Westerns. Usually one by an author that I like such as Louis L'Amour, Zane Grey, Luke Short or William Johnstone, and then another by an author that I typically haven't read. If I can't do that, I pick them by publisher. In this case, I picked up a Leisure reprint of John Trace's "Trigger Vengeance" and "Written in Blood" by J. Lee Butts.

had heard a lot about J. Lee Butts, but must admit that until recently, I hadn't read anything by him.

"Written in Blood" begins with an aging Hayden Tilden. He is a sassy old cuss, a retired lawman living in an old folks home during the 1940's. Nearly 90 years old, but still full of piss and vinegar, he despises his situation, his age. He sees ghosts of his long gone friends, yearns for the old days and begins to recall the past. Tilden begins to tell us a story from his younger days.

Let me say right here, that J. Lee Butts can write. The first chapter or so of "Written in Blood" is remindful of some of my favorite works of Elmer Kelton or Johnny Boggs. Tilden is a very likeable character and you can't help but to sympathize with his plight of old age. I really thought I was going to enjoy the story that Tilden's character was about to relate.

However ...

Butts soon introduces us to Hayden Tilden's old sidekick. The fella begins to relate to Tilden the exploits of a notorious outlaw gang that they need to track down immediately.

Well, never mind the outlaws, because I found Tilden's pal's description of the exploits so annoying that I was kind of hoping that Tilden would plug him with his Peacemaker. The sidekick launches himself into page after page of overdone, old Hollywoodesque, Western vernacular to the point that I would have kind of liked to have plugged him myself.

It may be that the character's overuse of stereotypical vernacular was intended to be a bit humorous (much like was done in the exploitation film "The Terror of Tiny Town" during the 30's), but I personally found it very distracting and unrealistic. Real people in the Old West simply did not speak this way and though a Western should be entertaining, like Louis L'Amour, I believe that Westerns are a type of historical fiction. As writers, we should all be striving not just to entertain, but also to enlighten people about the authentic Old West.

Needless to say, I simply had to put "Written in Blood" down. It's not often that I don't finish a Western, but this was one of those rare instances.

However, as I said earlier, J. Lee Butts can definitely write and up until the sidekick came on the page, I really liked "Written in Blood".

Needless to say, I will be trying him again in the hope that Tilden's sidekick isn't on the scene.

Western Paperbacks: Walk Proud, Stand Tall by Johnny D. Boggs

2009-06-05T13:55:00.001-07:00

Leisure Books; Reprint edition (October 30, 2007)

ISBN-10: 0843959010
ISBN-13: 978-0843959017

I hate to admit it, but even though I have been reading Westerns for YEARS, I have only been familiar with the work of Johnny D. Boggs for a short time. The first work of his that I had the pleasure of reading was his short "The Cody War" which appreared in the Lost Trails anthology (Pinnacle, 2007). To date, "The Cody War" is the finest short western story that I've ever read, so needless to say, my expectations for the next thing I read by Boggs was very high. The man does disappoint either.

"Walk Proud, Stand Tall" follows the story of Lin Garrett, a retired 70 year old Arizona lawman who in 1913, is a man from another time who spends his days in an old folks home brooding on his past and remembering the man that he once was and kicking himself over his past mistakes. Garrett is joined by his old deputy Randolph Corbett who tries his best to keep things lively by entertaining the hospital staff with stories from their youth.

Meanwhile, Ollie Sinclair, another old timer and a former nemesis of Garrett's is released from prison and in defiance of his own age, forms a new gang and robs a nearby train to have one last hurrah.

Amidst the bumbling of younger men, Garrett and Corbett soon saddle up and have one last ride in an effort to track Sinclair down.

"Walk Proud, Stand Tall" is reminescent of some of Elmer Kelton's better novels. Boggs' characters will always have a place in your memory and as a writer, he stands shoulder to shoulder with any one else out there.

Get it at Amazon.com

Books about Oregon: Fire At Eden's Gate: Tom McCall & The Oregon Story

2009-06-05T13:53:00.000-07:00

Fire At Eden's Gate: Tom McCall & The Oregon Story
by Brent Walth

If you were born in Oregon, or if you have ever lived in Oregon, even if you don't know anything about the man himself or what he accomplished, you have probably heard of Tom McCall.

Born Thomas Lawson McCall in March of 1922, as the grandson of two powerful American figures (Copper king Thomas Lawson and politician Samuel W McCall), for nearly thirty five years, McCall's influence over Oregon reigned supreme over nearly every public figure in the state. Starting as a newspaper journalist in the 1930's, McCall was a pioneer among early radio news announcers and later graduated to early television. McCall entered the Oregon political arena in the late 40's as an assistant to Governor Douglas McKay. By 1954, McCall had won the Republican nomination for Oregon's Third Congressional District only to lose the election to Edith Green. However, having remained out of politics for some time, in 1966, McCall was elected to his first term as Oregon Governor under the Republican ticket and was later re-elected in 1970.

In an era of notoriously corrupt politics, with the exception of his private life where he struggled with debt, the drug addiction of his youngest son and his own affliction with cancer, McCall shines through as an enormously forthright and human individual despite holding a major public office. While other polititians of his day despised and often avoided the press, McCall routinely sought the press out in an effort to inform people of the inner workings of Oregon's government. Considered too much of a populist for Republican tastes and too conservative for the tastes of Democrats, McCall firmly established himself with a reputation of being a maverick. While the people loved him, others in politics distrusted him.

As governor, McCall was finally in the position to do something about the issues that had always been dear to his heart. Namely, this included McCall's profound respect for the Oregon lands. During his tenure, he restored Oregon's beaches to public ownership, introduced the nation's first bottle bill, blocked the U.S. military from dumping chemical weapons in Oregon, guarded stands of wilderness from clear cutting, cleaned up the Willamette River and halted the advancement of urban sprawl into precious farm land. Long before the appearance of Ross Perot, Tom McCall spoke of the need for what he called a "Third Force" in American politics. He was also largely responsible for bringing down the Nixon administration over Watergate, by publicly demanding that Nixon resign.

Tom McCall made himself many enemies.

On January 12th, 1971, as McCall was entering his second term as governor, he was propelled to nationwide fame. That evening he appeared on CBS and was asked to sum up his views on conservation. (Which he was already famous for). What came out of McCall's mouth, is still the subject of a lot of debate, when McCall promptly remarked:

"We want you to visit our State of Excitement often. Come again and again. But for heaven's sake, don't move here."

Having long been enraged over urbanization, Oregonians instantly embraced McCall's "Visit, but don't stay" remark. Anti-tourism materials promptly appeared statewide. One pamphlet of the period stated:

"Tom McCall, governor of the Great State of Oregon, cordially invites you to visit ... Idaho, Washington, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, California, Hawaii or Afghanistan"

Another stated:

"People in Oregon love to see out of staters. Send us some photos of yourself when you get a chance."

Meanwhile, in my neck of the woods, bumper stickers began to appear that read:

"We Shoot Every Other Car With California License Plates"

Commercials appeared on TV pushing Oregon made products, while trashing products made elsewhere.

Though a tremendous sense of statewide pride surged through Oregonians due to McCall's statement, as well as a major boom in Oregon made products, McCall's words actually backfired on him and actually incited a rush to Oregon that had not been seen since the days of the Overlanders.

In the end, Oregon's economy actually collapsed. Tom McCall was an easy scapegoat, in that people claimed that "Visit but don't stay", as well McCall's legislation had discouraged business interests in coming to Oregon. Meanwhile, the enviornmental movement had somehow outgrown McCall, regarding him as out of touch on current issues.

In 1978, and anxious to do more work for his ailing state, Tom McCall once again desired to be governor, but in refusing to run as an Independent, he was beaten in the Republican primary.

In 1982, Governor Vic Atiyeh sought to remove the last vestige of "Visit, but don't stay" in the form of a sign that sits at the Oregon border with California on I-5. The sign read "Welcome to Oregon. Enjoy your visit". Atiyeh wanted to blow the sign up with dynamite to get the press there and publicly announce that Oregon was open for business, regardless of the potential damage.

Despite the fact that he was dying of cancer, McCall crashed Atiyeh's press conference and had the last word, saying:

"There's been a lot of bad mouthing about 'visit but don't stay'. It served its purpose. We were saying 'visit but don't stay' because Oregon, queen bee though she is, is not yet ready for the swarm. I am simply saying that Oregon is demure and lovely, and it ought to play a little hard to get. And I think you'll all be just as sick as I am if you find it is nothing but a hungry hussy, throwing herself at every stinking smokestack that's offered."

Brent Walth, a reporter at the Eugene Register Guard, does an excellent job in writing "Fire At Eden's Gate". Through his work, you can get a real sense of the sort of man that McCall was. Unlike other writings about McCall (which portray him either as a saint, or a demon) Walth gives us a genuine look at the man himself, as well as how he came to be, where he succeeded and where he failed.

If you're interested in Oregon, in politics, historical figures or if you're just pissed off at the state of the country and would like a breath of fresh air, pick up a copy of "Fire At Eden's Gate".

Get "Fire At Eden's Gate" at Amazon.

Western Films: The Star Packer (He Wore A Star)

2009-06-05T13:52:00.001-07:00

Recently, in celebration of The Duke's 102nd birthday, The Encore Westerns film channel ran a 28 hour John Wayne marathon. And what could get any better than that?

Included in the marathon were a number of Lone Star Westerns from the 1930's, including "The Star Packer" from 1934, which for my friends in the UK was released under the title "He Wore A Star". I happen to be a big fan of these old Lone Star Westerns, even though they were shot on the cheap.

"The Star Packer" features John Wayne as U.S. Marshall John Travers, who together with his Indian side kick Yak (played by Yakima Canutt) are looking for wanted men in an unnamed area of The West, but they soon get more than they bargain for when they encounter a gang of outlaws run by a mysterious man known only as "The Shadow".

"The Star Packer" was written and directed by Robert N. Bradbury (1886-1949), a very prolific writer and director of many early Westerns. "The Star Packer" was one of the eight Westerns Bradbury directed in 1934. Originally born in Walla Walla, Washington Territory, Bradbury's NorthWest heritage shines through, in that on numerous ocassions, Yakima Canutt's character can clearly be heard speaking some very broken Chinook Jargon when his atypical Injun sidekick character continually exclaims "Hiya Skookum!(Much good!)Big fun!" every time John Wayne's character does something particularly impressive.

See a trailer for The Star Packer.

You can also download the whole film at:

http://www.archive.org/details/The_Star_Packer

Or grab yourself a DVD at Amazon.

Western Films: September Dawn

2009-06-05T13:51:00.000-07:00

September Dawn
(Voice Pictures, 2007)

Directed by: Christopher Cain

Written by: Christopher Cain & Carole Wang Schutter

Cast: Terrence Stamp, John Voight, Trent Ford, Tamara Hope, John Gries, Taylor Handley, Dean Cain

I had the opportunity to check this film out the other night on pay-per-view. Though not a traditional Western in the typical sense, the film is set during the Westward Expansion and the film is built around the Mountain Meadows Massacre of the Fancher-Baker Wagon train by Mormon militia in Utah Territory in September of 1857. September Dawn is directed and co-written by Christopher Cain, who is probably best known as the director of Young Guns.

For those who don't know, during the 1850's, the Church of Latter Day Saints (better known as "Mormons") became well established in Utah Territory to the extent of establishing political control of a vast tract of land in and around the current borders of Utah. At the time, the LDS Church was actively seeking to establish a state of their own called Deseret and although their leader, Brigham Young, seeked recognition from the United States, tensions ran very high and eventually escalated into what became known as the Utah War which began in May 1857 and ended in July of 1858. Although the Utah War was primarily an armed stand-off between the Territory of Utah and the United States, it was far from bloodless and actually involved at least one third of the U.S. military and pitted them against the world's most experienced militia. At the time, many Mormons living in Utah Territory held a very real fear that the government of the United States seeked to destroy them for their beliefs. In the process of the Utah War, a wagon train known collectively as the Fancher-Baker party passed through Utah Territory and conspiracy theories began to circulate that the wagon train intended to inflict harm upon the local population. On September 11th, 1857, Mormon militia members, assisted by Paiute Indians swept down upon the party and massacred between 100 to 140 people, leaving only a few young children as survivors. Who actually ordered the massacre and what brought it on is still debated and until the release of "September Dawn" the Mountain Meadows Massacre was rarely spoken of and even less known.

The film itself actually centers on a love affair between Johnathan Samuelson (Trent Ford) who is the son of Mormon Bishop Jacob Samuelson (Jon Voight) and a young woman named Emily Hudson (Tamara Hope) who is a member of the wagon train.

Though some of the acting is a little less than solid and the running time didn't seem adequate to go into more detail, all in all, "September Dawn" is still a pretty good film. That said, due to the subject matter, it is one of those films that will either enlighten or infuriate and a rather heated controversy has erupted around the film since its release. Despite this, considering the little known historical matter, it is definitely recommended.

Grab a copy of September Dawn at Amazon

On a bit of a side note, co-writer Carole Whang Schutter, has also written a novel of the same name based on the film which is also available at Amazon.

Skookum - A short Western

2009-06-05T13:49:00.000-07:00

Skookum by Kerby Jackson

Lloyd Brackett had been trailing Joe Skookum for five days through a beautiful, yet wild and dangerous country that skirted the rushing white waters of the Rogue River. Far below him, from where he rode on the tree lined canyon rim, he could see the river boiling several hundred beneath him. As it raced on toward the town of Ellensburg and emptied into the Pacific some seventy miles away, that water ran as fast and as wild as its name sounded and had swallowed up many a white man and many an Indian over the eons who had taken a single, but fatal mis step on the jagged rocks upon which he now rode. Even if the distant fall did not kill a man, the river most surely would and even if the Rogue failed, this wild forest would certainly finish a man off.

The only other thing that was absolutely certain, Brackett knew, was that Joe Skookum was somewhere here in this wild land and that the star pinned to his flannel shirt made it his sworn duty to hunt him down. Joe could be a dangerous sort of man. He was half Takelma Indian, one of the last of his kind and had sure as hell lived up to one meaning of his surname. Back in the day, before they had been mostly run out of this valley and sent on the long, hard march to the Grande Rhonde Valley Reservation, local Indians had often used that word "skookum" to indicate a good, strong man. But it was also a name given to some sort of evil spirit that they all worried about meeting and the latter certainly described Joe Skookum well when he was drinking, for the man had committed a list of public offenses that ran the gamut from spitting on the sidewalks all the way up to assaulting a local preacher with a picket he had torn from the church fence.

Joe had always been a salty sort of character, but now he had gone much too far, for he had shot down two men in cold blood and had even dug his way out of what Lloyd Brackett had thought was a secure jail and had high tailed it up the canyon despite wearing an Oregon Boot on one foot. The boot was a terrible sort of contraption that consisted of a stirrup that slipped under the sole of a man's foot and was attached to a heavy weighted ring that was locked around the ankle and the thing weighed enough to slow any man who wore it down to a stagger instead of a normal walk. The reputation of this thing was known far and wide and it was said that no man had ever escaped wearing an Oregon Boot. But Joe Skookum had done just that and despite the fact that he was probably still wearing the damn thing, he had led Lloyd Brackett into some of the roughest country on God's green earth and had managed to stay far ahead of him judging from what little sign he was leaving behind.

If the word got out and Joe Skookum managed to get away, Brackett would surely be the laughing stock of every lawman between here and Kansas. That idea did not bother him so much, but the thought that it might confirm the fact that he was getting old, did get under his skin. The pity of it all was that Joe was a likable sort of fella when he laid off the whiskey and otherwise tended to be hard working and upstanding. He'd spent many a night in the drunk tank, and Lloyd had to admit, that when the alcohol wore off, he kind of liked Joe Skookum and sometimes they played cards together until the wee hours.

Lloyd and this old horse that he was riding had been the law in this valley for years and they were both definitely feeling the wear and tear from it of late. Old Judge, a large chestnut with a white blaze and boots, was still sure footed and dependable, but the old horse no longer seemed to see very well, while his rider, now sixty five years old, tended to feel every bump on the trail in his bones. He had even taken to having slipped an extra blanket beneath his trail worn saddle. It cushioned his backside enough to absorb some of the shock and even made Lloyd appear a bit taller in the saddle, which was a good thing, for he was pretty sure that he'd shrunk a bit in height these last few years. However, that extra padding didn't do a damn thing for his eyes and ears, both of which were failing, and for a man who needed sharp senses and quick reflexes, it was a disturbing development.

Brackett had always been fast with a gun and he could shoot out the eye of a bird in flight when he was a younger man. While he was still fast, he knew that he wasn't quite as quick as he had once been, for that big .45 Colt he had always carried seemed to have gained a bit of weight. Lloyd liked to think that maybe they were just loading the cartridges a little heavier these days and that accounted for the difference, but he knew that wasn't true. He'd even thought about maybe trading the old gun in for one of those new fangled lighter models, but he didn't want sacrifice the fire power, nor did he think that those newer models looked quite right. As for shooting out the eyes of birds, that too had changed, but he was still a bit of a shootist and provided he could see something and it didn't move too fast, he could still hit it. Still, if it came down to it, he kind of wondered how quick he'd be compared to a younger man like Joe Skookum in a stand up fight on even ground.

Even though Lloyd's eyes and ears might have been failing, one thing that had not ebbed was his sense of smell. As he came to the top of a rise in the canyon wall and looked out over where the canyon opened up wide and the green of Doug Firs ran clear to the horizon until they met with a line of blue green peaks, Lloyd could smell a faint, but distinct smell of wood smoke on the gentle breeze. He didn't think that Joe would be fool enough to light a fire, but he had ran him hard for five days and the man still had that contraption on his ankle, so maybe he had forced him to risk a camp fire. On the other hand, maybe Joe Skookum thought that Lloyd was an old man who could no longer cut it and was waiting somewhere out there for him to catch him up so they could have it out. This area was so isolated that if Joe was true to his Takelma roots and crept up on him at night to slit his throat with that big skinning knife he carried, Lloyd reckoned that it would be years before anyone would find his bones, if they ever found his remains at all. Apart from some sturdy folks, most of which were the Metis offspring of old trappers and their brides of assorted Indian tribes, who lived near the big bend in the river at Illahe, damn few people ever came out this way. It was still a wild place disturbed only with the constant roar of the Rogue, and Lloyd figured that it would probably always be that way for it took some hard souls to manage in this land.

He squinted out over the dense forest and canyon below him looking for a sign of the smoke that he was smelling, gradually surveying the half circle of the expanse before him. It was then that another smell came to him, a bit sweet, but like burnt sugar. He took in a deep breath to try to place the smell and soon did.

It was Camas, he decided, their onion like bulbs roasting in the coals of a fire somewhere nearby. Lloyd had tried them once at Digger Haines' place and they had reminded him of the Sweet Potatoes that he had eaten as a boy. He had quite liked them, but only Indians and old woodsmen like Digger Haines ate the stuff for most said it was "Injun food" and therefore, not fit for consumption by god fearing folks. Joe Skookum was not exactly what you could call a god fearing man and Brackett was certain that the renegade Metis was nearby.

Lloyd withdrew his Winchester from the boot and stood up in his stirrups to take a better look at his surroundings. And it was then that a sort funny feeling swept through his gut and Lloyd dove off the back of Old Judge just in time to hear a bullet sing past him and the sound of single gunshot echoing up and down the canyon. He immediately took cover behind a large tree that had been knocked over during some storm in ages past. The bark had been stripped off by the weather and the log was already heavy with rot on one side, but was big enough to shield his body. Another shot rang out from somewhere in the canyon below and smashed through the tree limbs above him, the wicked sound putting the rider less Judge into a bolt.

"Joe?" Brackett called out to the shooter below, not knowing if the man would answer or it.

"Yeah?" a voice said from far below.

"This is Lloyd Brackett."

"Whaddya want?" Joe Skookum shouted back.

"You know damn well what I want, Joe Skookum! You just step out where I can see you and toss that gun so we can go back to town."

"Like hell, I will! I ain't goin' back to that town. You just let me walk out of here."

"Can't do it, Joe," Brackett told him and he levered a round into the Winchester.

"I know."

"Don't make me come down there," Brackett told him.

Another round plowed into the tree just behind Brackett, sending fragments of bark to the pine needled forest floor. Lloyd looked at the damage to the tree.

"Ain't you a bit too old for this sort of thing, Lloyd?"

Judging by the sound of his voice and the angle of the shot that hit the tree, Brackett knew that the man was somewhere to the right of him and probably holed up somewhere amongst the rocks along the canyon wall.

"I hadn't planned to retire yet, if that's what you mean."

"You must have Meyers with you, then, don't you?"

Joe Meyers was Brackett's deputy, and a good one, but he had sent Joe to run a prisoner over to Jackson County and he preferred to not involve townspeople in a posse.

"No, it's just you and me, kid. Tell you what, if you give up and come out, I'll say you put up a hell of a fight and nobody will know you surrendered."

The man didn't answer, as if he was mulling that idea over.

"I'd know," he finally said and he let go of two more shots, the second one coming dangerously close and thunking into the rotting log just in front of Brackett. Immediately he hunkered down and swore at the closeness of the shot. Had the man been using a rifle, it might have ran through and hit Brackett, it was so close.

Joe Skookum laughed out loud.

"That one almost get you, Lloyd?"

"Almost," Brackett told him. "That a .31 you're using?"

"Yep. I figure if a Baby Dragoon was good enough for Ferd Patterson, it's good enough for Joe Skookum, don't you think?"

"Not for this it isn't, Joe," Brackett spat and he popped up from behind the log and let go of a shot from the Winchester and heard the round ricochet amongst the rocks on the other side of the canyon a few hundred feet away. Lloyd shucked his hat, leaving it atop the log and ran for the cover of a large rock.

Joe Skookum let loose of a long line of oaths and Brackett knew he had come close.

"You tryin' to kill me, Lloyd? Hell, I ain't done nothin' to you!"

"I was just letting you know where I stood. Why don't you just come on out of them rocks and we'll talk about it?"

"Then what? You send me over to Judge Hannah in Jacksonville where he can hang me? No, I think I'll stick to staying here in the rocks even if I got to go out like old Ferd Patterson."

"You'll get a fair trial," Brackett told him. "Maybe just a few years in state prison, you never know how these things go, Joe. I seen him let lots of fellas off light."

"From Hannah? That's horse shit and you know it!"

Brackett knew it was and he knew that Judge Hannah would just as soon hang Joe Skookum as look at him. He'd probably even sell tickets to the hanging to make a little money on the side.

"Maybe so. Let me ask you something, Joe. Why'd you do it? Why'd you shoot those two men?"
"They called me names," Joe told him. "Said I was a dirty, stinking Indian."

"You are an Indian, Joe."

"Yeah, I know. But then they called me yellow!"

"Why'd they say you were yellow?"

"They wanted me to rob the stage to Yreka with them and I told them I wasn't goin' to do it. So they called me a coward and I shot 'em. That's it."

"You should have told me before, Joe. Sounds like maybe you stopped a robbery and done everyone a service. Why I'll bet that I could convince Judge Hannah to make an exception for you. All you got to do is trust me, Joe."

"I'll bet he won't!"

"You're just gonna have to take that chance, Joe. I'll do my best for you."

For a long while neither man said a thing and both of them just stayed quiet.

"What are you doing, Joe?" Brackett finally called out to him across the canyon.

"I was just thinkin'."

"About what?"

"About when I was a boy and I wasn't so bad. My ma and pa never intended that I turned out this way."

"They never do," Brackett told him.

"They always told me to just be a good boy and to wear my name proudly. You know what it means, Lloyd? Do you speak any of that old jargon?"

Brackett did, for that language had still been spoken when he first came here, before it had been discouraged by school marms, preachers and Indian agents as a heathen's language. In fact, when he had first come to this valley, a lot of people had chose to speak it over English and many of the children he met at that time could not speak English at all.

"Nawitka," Brackett told him in an affirmative in that old language. "It's been years since I heard anyone speak it."

"You know what the name means then?"

"Nawitka," he repeated again. "And I reckon you're a good fella when you lay off the firewater."

Joe didn't answer for awhile, but then finally he said, "Okay, I'm comin' out."

The man stood up from behind an outcropping of rock with his hands raised high and then pitched the .31 Baby Dragoon he had been using into the river.

Brackett stood, walked to the edge of the canyon and looked the man over. The man was dirty, smeared with blood from the ricochet shot and Brackett could see that the Oregon Boot was still secured on his right foot. As he cradled his Winchester, he pointed a finger at the boot.

"You know what, Joe Skookum. You're the only man who has ever escaped wearing one of those things. Takes a lot of sand. I reckon your parents named you just right."

The man looked down at the boot and grinned at it, feeling a bit proud.

"You're pretty skookum too, Lloyd."

****

Copyright 2008 by Kerby Jackson. Work archived by WorldWideOCR.com www.western-stories.com

Bones by Kerby Jackson - one of my early western shorts

2009-06-05T13:46:00.000-07:00

Following is one of my early Western shorts. It is entitled "Bones" and was written in 2003 and published under my horror psudonym.

+++++++++
Bones

Jimmy watched as the campfire seemed to dance in the stranger's eyes.

The man had appeared out of nowhere from the desert, having wandered into Jimmy's camp from somewhere out in the darkness.

"You mind if I warm these old bones of mine by your fire?" the man asked.

The voice was old, dry and seemed to croak like the crackle of the kindling being charged in the flames of the campfire.

Jimmy eased off the hammer of his revolver and clicked it back into place.

"Come on in," he said as he got a closer look at the old man and re-sheathed the Colt in his worn holster.

The old man stepped near the fire and crouched down on his haunches, his bones groaning and cracking as he bent. The man was ancient and wore dusty, tattered clothes, his face darkened by the hot desert sun.

"Thanks for the fire," the old man said, the flames still reflecting from the surface of his eyes. "The name's Jeremiah."

"I'm Jim," Jimmy said to him as he reached over and shook the man's hand; his touch was ice cold.

The old man looked awfully thin, his ruined clothes seeming to just hang off of his body. Jimmy hadn't seen anyone so thin since he saw his grandfather's body laid out in the front parlor of the ranch when he was nine. He judged that this old man had been wandering for some time.

"You hungry?" Jimmy asked as he pointed to the small kettle of beans bubbling on a rock in the campfire. "I've got plenty to share."

"I am," said the old man "But no thanks, son."

"You sure?" Jimmy asked again. "I got plenty."

"Nah. I'm sure," the man repeated. "But I could sure use a drink if you got one. It's mighty cold out tonight and I ain't had a drink for what seems like an age."

The old man was shivering despite the fact that the fire was raging in between them. His bony arms were clutched around his chest, and his grey teeth chattered against one another.
Jimmy reached for his saddlebags at the head of his bed roll and pulled out a bottle of rum. He stood up and handed the bottle to the old man.

"That's mighty kind of you, son," the old man said as he pulled the cork from the bottle and raised the neck to his parched lips. He took a big gulp as Jimmy watched him swallow, his bony Adam's apple rising up and down.

"Ah!" the old man exclaimed. "That warms these old bones! I'm much obliged to you for the drink, Jim."

"So what brings you out here to these parts, Jeremiah?" Jimmy asked. The truth be told, he couldn't understand why anyone else would be out here in this wasteland. For three days, he hadn't seen a sign of another soul apart from him and Chance, who was now tethered to a large bit of sage brush some feet away, munching at the few silver leaves on its twig-like branches. Jimmy had made good time across the desert from Burns; he'd shot a man there, and the Three Sisters peaks in the Cascades were now only a day's ride away, then he would be in a new town.

"I'm headed for a town called Jacksonville on the other side of those mountains," the old man answered. "I hear they hit gold over there, so I figure I might try my luck. Maybe then I can trade these old rags in."

It sounded strange to Jimmy. He'd heard that the gold in the Illinois River had dried up back in '49, over fifteen years earlier and although the town was still there, it had fallen into a lonely disrepair. The miners had long since packed their mules and headed to California.

"I hate to tell you this, but I heard the gold dried up over there," Jimmy remarked. "Dried up a long time ago."

"Nah," said the old man. "I just read about it in the paper a few weeks ago."

"Well, I reckon maybe the found more then," Jimmy said.

The old man was shivering again, even though the heat from the fire was intense.

"You still cold?"

"Afraid so," the old man said as he scooted closer to the fire trying to get warm.

"You want one of my blankets?" Jimmy took pity on the old man.

"I wouldn't want to put you out or nuthin', but I'd be mighty thankful for a blanket and another swig of that rum to warm me up."

"You go it," Jimmy said as he pulled the thickest blanket off his bed roll and tossed it to the old man. The old man wrapped himself in the blanket and took another drink out of the bottle.

"I'm gonna turn in," Jimmy said. "Daylight comes early out here; I'd advise you to do the same. After some breakfast, I'll take you the rest of the way to Jacksonville - you can ride old Chance, save your energy to find that gold when we get there."

"That's mighty kind of you, son. I'll turn in in a wee while."

"G'night," Jimmy said as he lay down on his bed roll and shut his eyes, the stars slipping away as his eyes closed.

"Goodnight," said the old voice, "And thanks, Jim."

When Jimmy awoke to the sound of chirping Goldfinches flitting about the sage brush and the hues of the gold-red sun peeking over the Steens mountains in the east, he found himself alone in the camp. The old man was gone.

"Son of a bitch!" Jimmy bolted out of bed; his first thought was that the old man had stolen his horse and slipped away during the night. But as he looked around, he saw Chance tethered to the same bush, his big tongue licking off what little dew was on the leaves of the sage brush. The animal raised his head as if to look at him and then quickly went back to his business of collecting the precious moisture from the silver-tinged leaves.

Jimmy looked around, squinting his eyes to try and see as far off on the horizon as possible. There was nothing out there but brush and volcanic dirt for as far as the eye could see.

In the center of the camp, the last embers of the fire had nearly died out, leaving only a few bits of crumbling white ash and black charcoal still remaining in the rock circle. The bottle of rum sat upright where the man had been sitting, its cork jammed into the neck. Jimmy's thick blanket lay neatly folded by its side. A trail of foot prints led off from where the man had been sitting and stretched out into the landscape of sage brush, towards the snow-capped Three Sisters to the west.

Jimmy called for the man at the top of his voice, but the only replies that came back were the echoes of his own words.

Fearing that the old man had wandered off and met with some accident in the brush, Jimmy quickly broke camp, packed his gear and climbed atop Chance's back to begin a search for the old man.

The foot prints, although fresh, were only light impressions and meandered away from the camp into the brush. Besides their light imprint, there was nothing strange about them. The prints were evenly spaced and close to each other, indicating a casual stride.

Jimmy followed the prints on horseback; his eyes fixed a few feet ahead as the prints trailed off through the brush. Finally, some ten feet ahead, the prints came to an abrupt end in the volcanic soil. Jimmy stepped off of Chance, took the reins in his left hand and walked slowly to the last two prints, leading the horse behind him. The foot prints simply ended. Duplicates of the others, they came to a dead stop. It was as if the old man had vanished into thin air.

"Damn," Jimmy said as he scratched his head in confusion and looked around him, trying to figure out just what in the hell had happened. The only thing that came to mind was that the old man didn't want to be found and had covered his tracks by dragging a piece of sage brush behind him. Still, it made no sense.

That was when Jimmy saw the old man's boot peeking out from a clump of sage brush just a few feet away.

Jimmy's pulse quickened.

"Jeremiah?"

He waited for a reply but there wasn't one.

"You OK, old man?"

Again, there was no reply, save the light desert breeze whispering among the sage leaves.

Jimmy dropped the reins from his hand, leaving Chance behind and slowly crept towards the boot.

The boot was on its side, a bit of old trouser-leg showing, until it vanished behind the bush. The old man must have fallen, Jimmy thought.

Jimmy rounded the bush and stopped abruptly as his eyes came to rest on an unexpected sight.
A sun-bleached human skeleton, partially shrouded in tattered clothes lay on the ground behind the bush. It was Jeremiah, only the flesh of his body had been picked clean, leaving only the hard, white frame of his bones behind where the wind blew through his collapsed rib cage. A rotting leather back-pack lay at his side, a rusted gold-pan sticking through the festering fabric.

He'd been lying there for years, the wind and dust leaving behind only a polished skeleton and grinning skull.

"You old fool," Jimmy scolded him quietly. "I guess you'll never find your gold now."

Jimmy went back to Chance and pulled his bed roll and saddlebags off the horse and went back to the bones.

He covered the skeleton with his heavy blanket, tucking the old man into his earthen bed, like only a mother would normally do. Jimmy crouched down next to the bones and pulled the cork from the bottle of rum. He took a swig from it, replaced the cork and stood the bottle next to the old man's skeletal hand.

"To keep you warm at night."

© 2003 by Kerby Jackson

Buncom, Oregon - Southern Oregon's Hidden Ghost Town

2009-06-05T13:44:00.000-07:00

Contrary to popular belief, there are very few standing ghost towns left in the West in this day and age. Although books and web sites often say that this town or another is a ghost town, most of those so-called "ghost towns" actually have a few residents still living there at least some part of the year. In the case of Jacksonville, which is one of our local "ghost towns" that you may find listed on many web sites or in books, Jacksonville actually has several thousand residents and is simply a very well preserved gold rush era town that has a few developmental laws in place to insure that new buildings conform to the look and feel of the place. Meanwhile, you can also find Placer, Oregon in many of those books. Placer exists and yet doesn't exist at the same time. The actual town of Placer is gone, but many of its buildings are not and they may be found hidden amongst the relatively recent housing developments of Sunny Valley, Oregon's outskirts up on Placer Road. There is also Kerby, Oregon (which I was named for), where numerous remnants of the frontier era still exist, including the old hanging tree where fast judgements were typically dealt out by Judge Lynch. Though Kerby is listed as a "ghost town" in many places, its few hundred inhabitants would argue different. Meanwhile, another local ghost town is All Hours. As its name might indicate, All Hours was a pretty rough place back in the day and saw more than its share of frontier violence. All Hours is a ghost town all right and its such a ghost that not only is there nothing left of the place, but nobody seems to know for sure exactly where the town site actually was.

Buncom, Oregon, however, is a REAL ghost town and it's one of only two of its kind in this part of Oregon (the other is Golden). But unlike Golden, Buncom is not even too well known by long time locals, likely because it is located in some forested country that is a eleven miles from Highway 238. That said, Buncom is not exactly isolated. The buildings are located on the private property of Mr. Reeve Hennion (the official "Mayor" of Buncom) who lives in a house nearby and sit upon the shoulder of the crossroads of Sterling Creek Road and Little Applegate Road. Though these are not busy roads, they are paved and a great number of people do live out here, hence a few cars go by every so often.

Despite the fact that Buncom is not well known by even locals, people have lived here for eons. Prior to the 1850's and the coming of American settlers, the Latgawa Indians had a village nearby at the mouth of Sterling Creek. Miners discovered gold here in 1854 and during the Rogue River Indian Wars, the Latgawa who lived on the banks of Sterling Creek were entirely wiped out. Owing to the fact that a good amount of gold was located in the basic vicinity, a number of communities were established, one of which was Buncom, as well as nearby Sterlingville which was believed to be the larger of the two and also had its own cemetery.

One gets to Buncom by traveling on Oregon Highway 238 (either from the east out of historic Jacksonville or from the west via Grants Pass, both of which are accessed easily from Interstate 5). At the small community of Ruch, take Applegate Road to the south and then turn left on Sterling Creek Road and just drive on to Buncom, which is eleven miles from Ruch.

While traveling Highway 238 from either direction, you'll be driving through proper Gold Country, the remnants of that era still being seen along the roadside in the guise of old mining flumes, ruined cabins, moss covered gravestones and numerous old homesteads. Unseen from the naked eye on the densely forested mountain sides, hundreds of old mines honeycomb the area, while down along the river bottom lands of the Applegate River lay some of the finest farmland in Oregon. In times past, it mainly supported vegetable and grain crops, but in recent years, numerous vineyards have appeared. It's also some of the oldest land you will find in the West and the Applegate River, though relatively small, is truly an ancient stream. Eons ago much of the Western portion of North America lay underwater, but at its western most edge were two large islands. One of these islands consisted of the mountainous country of northeast Oregon, while the other is today the Siskiyou, Applegate and Rogue countries. Where I'm writing this, which is less than a mile from the southern banks of the Rogue River, would have been beach front property back in those days. In that age, numerous species of animals not typically found in North America once roamed here and the bones of ancient camels and the little three toed prehistoric horses have been found at the ancient campsites of the area's first locals. Local museums also have samples of Mammoth remains, the forebears of modern elephants.

Buncom proper is composed of three standing buildings including the Buncom Post Office (which also doubled as a general store), a large cookhouse and a long narrow bunkhouse. The remains of a fourth building are also across the road, but as you traverse the area, one can also see old sheds, barns and cabins in varying states of condition that were also part of Buncom.

The main cluster of buildings mentioned above are maintained by the Buncom Historical Society who has done quite a lot of restoration work to see that they remain for the future. Due to its relative isolation, vandalism is a problem.

In 2003 their society released a book entitled "Buncom: Crossroads Station" and written by Connie Fowler and J.B. Roberts to document the history of this aging ghost town.

Until recently, the society held an annual Buncom Days festival on the grounds that attracted hundreds of attendees, but just like Buncom's occupants, it too is now a thing that belongs to the ages.

Though one is free to visit Buncom, visitors should remember that the site is private property and to follow the cardinal rule of all ghost town enthusiasts - no relic hunting - and to leave only with your memories and some photographs.

~ Kerby J.

Map courtesy of Mapquest. The blue line indicates the Oregon-California border and is roughly between Portland and San Francisco.

Photos of Buncom, Oregon by Kerby Jackson. (Jan. 3rd, 2008)

Buncom, Oregon. You likely expect to see a tumbleweed blowing by in this photo, but we don't have any sagebrush on this side of Oregon, hence we have no tumbleweeds. All in all, there's not a hell of a lot of going on in Buncom these days.

Even the woodpeckers gave up a long time ago.

The remains of a house at Buncom, Oregon. As indicated by the growth of moss on its foundation, it has been gone for decades. Part of the fireplace can be seen on the right.

A few bits of debris that someone dug up out of the building's foundation, but fortunately, they followed the golden rule of all ghost town visitors and left them behind for others to enjoy. (And I left them too). Note the distorted bit of glass in the center that tells the tell-tale story of a house fire in decades past. The item on the right is the remnant of what was once a sealed canning jar that likely burst in the pantry during the fire. (By the design, this jar is Post 1915, so is not necessarily as old as one might think).

The same building, only another view.

A side view of Buncom, Oregon.

The crossroads where Buncom, Oregon stands. As indicated by the road sign, Sterling Creek runs nearby. Gold was first discovered here in 1854 and a number of small communities sprung up along the banks of the creek, including Buncom. Also nearby was the mining community of Sterlingville, Oregon which also boasted its own cemetery (I haven't located either the town site or the cemetery yet.) If you happen to visit Buncom and come in the winter, avoid using the uphill section Sterling Road. Though paved, it goes up over the mountainside like a corkscrew and is very dangerous even during the summer months due to its narrow lanes and hair-pin corners that plunge off down the embankment. Due to our wet winters and dense forests, it becomes a little better suited for bobsleds than cars that time of the year due to constant sheets of ice in the shaded areas. Even during the summer it's a pretty stressful drive!

The false fronted building on the right was originally the post office for Buncom, Oregon. It's the youngest building at Buncom, dates back to about 1910 and also doubled as a general store. Quite a lot of restoration has actually been done to it, including repairs to its roof and front porch. The Buncom Historical Society has done a wonderful job preserving it, as can be seen in the historical photos of this building on their web site.
The "bunk house" at Buncom, Oregon. Note that the rear door is ajar. Someone with no respect for history broke the lock on the door and forced it open. Though I chose not to venture inside, I did poke my head in enough to make sure they had not thrashed the place (fortunately, they hadn't). When we got home, I gave local author and Buncom Historical Society officer Connie Fowler a call to let them know about the door being open and she told me that they were having a constant problem with vandals breaking windows and doing other damage. I suspect the problem would be even worse if Buncom was not located on a relatively well traveled road with houses nearby. A close up of the back door. Note that electricity was put in here at one time. Once Buncom officially expired as a town, these buildings were used as homes by a few hardy folks over the years.

Another view of the backdoor ajar. Is that a lens flare or the ghosts of Buncom's past standing guard?

The "cook house" at Buncom, Oregon. Quite a bit of restoration work has been done here.

Another view of Buncom's post office.

And yet another. Notice the broken window pane that a vandal smashed?

A rather unique looking tree at Buncom (behind the burned out house), likely the result of decades of neglect on what was originally a grafted sapling. I'll bet this guy looks a lot like a headless Wampus or Sasquatch on a full moon night.

Here's a side view of the post office. Note the stove pipe hole.

Yet another unique tree. You can almost imagine a bunch of local boys riding it as a make-believe-horse in an age gone by when there was a bit more going on in Buncom, Oregon.

We Need More Westerns

2009-06-03T20:16:00.000-07:00

Some of you are aware that Westerns are fast disappearing from bookstore shelves.

Fortunately, Gary Dobbs is trying to do something about the vanishing Western genre by filing a petition to chain booksellers. (Gary lives in Wales and writes Westerns under the name of Jack Martin. His current novel is "The Tarnished Star", available soon from Black Horse Westerns in England. Get your copy at Amazon here

If you lament the the vanishing job that the Western is pulling as much as I do, please take the time to sign the petition.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/wildwestmonday/index.html

Regards,

Kerby Jackson
www.kerbyjackson.com

Oregon's Biggest Gold Nugget

2009-06-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

If you trawl the internet for information on gold mining in Oregon, sooner or later, you'll find mention of the Armstrong Nugget. This huge lump of placer gold was discovered near the ghost town of Susanville, Oregon in 1913 by George Armstrong. (Info here) This big monster weighed in at 80.4 ounces. Today, it's gold value alone would fetch over $80,000 U.S. dollars. The Armstrong Nugget is currently on display at U.S. Bank in Baker City, Grant County, Oregon.

Most internet sources claim that the Armstrong Nugget was the biggest gold nugget ever discovered in Oregon, but it isn't so.

In fact, here in Josephine County, on the opposite side of the state, a number of larger gold nuggets have been discovered near what was refered to as Sailor's Diggings. One of them, pulled out of Sucker Creek, weighed 15 pounds. But that's still not the biggest one.

In 1859, a little Irish fellow by the name of Mattie Collins was mining along the East Fork of Althouse Creek when he uncovered a huge lump of almost pure gold that became known as the Collins Nugget. Mattie's find weighed in at a whopping 204 ounces (approximately 17 pounds troy), which he sold for $3500. At today's gold prices, the Collins Nugget would be worth over $200,000, but typically a nugget will fetch a significantly higher price.

The Collins Nugget is the largest single hunk of gold ever pulled from the Oregon lands, but unlike the Armstrong Nugget, it doesn't survive today. As was always done in those days, Mattie took his find to the local smelter, traded it for cash and then drank himself into poverty.

Prarie Schooners and the Oregon Trail

2008-03-26T04:43:00.000-07:00

The final resting place of a 40 year old man who died along the Applegate Trail in 1867 near what is now Merlin, Oregon.

Between the 1830's and the 1870's, roughly 200,000 people migrated from the Eastern portion of the United States to the Western coast of North America along what is popularly known as the Oregon Trail. Officially, the trail extended over 2000 miles across a mostly unpopulated and very wild continent, typically starting at Independence, Missouri and usually ending at Oregon City in Oregon's fertile Willamette Valley. The average journey took four months and was filled with extreme hardship. Contrary to popular myth, many of these people actually turned back toward their homes and never did make it out West.

Along the trail, over 25,000 of these immigrants (they didn't call themselves "Pioneers") died from various causes and it has been estimated that there is an average of one grave along every eighty feet of the trail. Though most of these graves were unmarked and their locations long since forgotten, a large number of markers can still be found along the trail.

Contrary to the popular misconception, the Oregon Trail isn't actually a single trail. Though Independence, Missouri was the popular gathering spot to asemble wagon trains, the trail actually began wherever the immigrants originated. (I use the term "immigrants" simply because the people involved used that same term for they were actually leaving the United States and moving to a new country, which early on was actually under European rule). Much the same way, though the official end of the trail was originally Oregon City, the journey ended wherever a family chose to settle. Though many did go to the Willamette Valley, many others went on to California or what became Washington (then called Columbia). Quite a few actually settled in British Columbia which is now part of Canada. Those who chose to go on to the Pacific North West essentially stayed on the Oregon Trail, while those who chose to go to California, took a branch in the trail in Western Idaho that went south west. (Here in Oregon, we have an old legend about where the trail splits in that the northern spur of the trail was marked by a sign which read "To Oregon", while the southern branch was marked by a pile of pyrite (Fool's Gold) and marked the way to California. People who could read took the northern branch, while people who were greedy and illiterate went to California. Some Californians like to claim that it was really the other way around.) As well, in addition to these two main branches, some parties also made their own way. One such group were the Applegate Brothers who migrated to the Willamette Valley in 1843, yet lost three family members while floating the Columbia River near the Dalles. By the Spring of 1846, the three brothers were determined to find a safer route to the Willamette Valley and soon established the Applegate Trail which cuts off of the California Trail in Western Nevada and then meanders through Southern Oregon toward the Willamette. In 1853, over 3500 people used this route, which today runs the same route as Nevada State Highway 66 and Interstate 5.

Contrary to what you may have learned in history class at school or have seen in movies, these people did not come over the Plains in Constega Wagons pulled by mules or horses. Constega Wagons were actually much too heavy to make the journey, while horses and mules were not only too expensive and difficult to keep in condition during the journey, but they also proved very tempting to Indians who had a fondness for stealing them. Instead, they used much lighter wagons which were pulled by six oxen.

As well, nobody actually rode in the wagons, either. In addition to there not being enough space for riders (too many provisions in the wagon), the wagons actually didn't have a seat for a driver. (Instead of drivers and reins on a harness, they had bullwhackers which moved the oxen along with the aid of a huge bullwhip. Contrary to popular misconception, bullwhackers don't actually whip the oxen either. Instead the bullwhip has a little "popper" at the tip which when used properly makes a great snapping sound through the air to move the animals along). In otherwords, everyone walked 2000 miles to come to Oregon.

Though I mentioned that horses were not used on the trail because they appealed too much to Indians who saw horse theft as a great personal challenge, contrary to all those movies you've seen, most wagon trains never had any problems by Indians. In most movies about the Oregon Trail, you see the wagons placed in a circle to guard against Indian attack while the people camp inside the circled wagons. Though they did place the wagons in a circle, the people actually camped outside of the circle and they actually used the wagons to form a corral for their animals by chaining the tongues of each wagon to the axle of another so that it was secure.

Contrary to the movies, of the 25,000+ people who died along the trail, only about 400 of them were killed by Indians and for the most part, many wagon trains were assisted by Indians. Most of the old fashioned herbal cures that pioneer women knew were actually learnt from Indians that these women often met along the trail to Oregon.

Although the establishment of the intercontinental railroad largely spelled the end of the Oregon Trail by the 1870's, the trail actually remained in use by migrants using covered wagons as late as 1912.

Kind of makes you wonder what else they didn't tell you in school, doesn't it?

Something about Six Shooters

2008-03-26T03:07:00.000-07:00

One probably can't think of the Old West without having the image of a six gun in their head.

In addition to being interested in the Old West, I also have a real thing about revolvers and I own several. In fact, the Ruger Single Six that you see here is mine. It fires a standard .22 Long Rifle cartridge and though it is far from a toy, it is largely just a little plinker that is just a lot of fun to shoot.

I also own an 1851 .44 Colt Navy that is quite a lot different from the Ruger you see here. In the first place, it's a black powder weapon which means that it relies on a percussion cap, a lead ball and a measured charge of black powder to do its thing. Also, unlike the Ruger in the photo, it's not a little plinker. In fact, the first time I ever fired it, I immediately stopped to make sure that I had a right hand left because it made one hell of a big boom. All in all, it's a totally different experience from firing a modern firearm. Contrary to what one sees in Western films, most people in the Old West actually used black powder revolvers and many gunmen, such as Jesse James, used the 1851 Colt Navy to do their business simply because a large number of them were left over from the Civil War.

Another thing that you see in films that's not exactly accurate is how many shots a gunman typically fired.

Most of us really make fun of old Westerns that involve shoot-outs where people seem to have limitless supplies of ammunition loaded in their gun. But what you probably don't know, is that despite being often called "Six Shooters" (so-called because MOST revolvers have six chambers), most people actually only kept five of the cylinder chambers loaded and to be safe kept the hammer of the gun on an empty. Needless to say, when they drew their sixer from their holster, they would have to cock it so that a primed chamber moved into line with the hammer.

The reason is, these old guns are actually pretty damn dangerous. In addition to having a charge of gunpowder in each cylinder chamber, each one also has a percussion cap that fits onto a nipple behind the charge of gunpowder. When you pull the trigger, it slams onto the percussion cap, which sets off a charge that ignites the gunpowder, the force of the explosion which propells the ball out of the barrel. It's a pretty simple concept, but unlike modern guns, these old relics are a bit unreliable, not to mention unpredictable. In addition to sometimes chain firing (where the ignition of the percussion cap or powder accidentily sets off an additional chamber - that's not a good experience), the caps themselves can be set off by even a small blow, which in turn sets that chamber off. (Believe it or not, the first person who lost their life on the Oregon Trail wasn't killed by Indians, nor did they die of some dreaded disease. Instead, the guy accidentily shot himself while taking a loaded rifle out of a wagon).

Wyatt Earp (who was perhaps not always so handy with a six gun, afterall) quite often carried his revolver with all six chambers loaded in his younger years. That is, until one day, he sat down in a chair in some saloon and his un-thonged gun fell out of its holster, hit the floor and promptly discharged. The resulting shot whizzed past his head and buried itself into the ceiling above him. Following that experience, Earp always kept that sixth chamber empty.

So needless to say, the next time you watch a Western and you see some guy take six shots with his revolver, just remember that he's likely a tinhorn with a deathwish.

The Old West

2008-03-16T20:48:00.000-07:00

My name is Kerby Jackson and I write Westerns.

Welcome to my Old West blog!

Periodically I'll be posting tidbits of all sorts about the Old West.