FIRST PA BEST OF THE WEST THE GE LIST Cheewa James’s & Lynda A. Sánchez’s Influential ‘Best of the West’ rides again Nonfiction Welcome to the “Best of the West.” “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” The Cheewa James is author of Modoc: The Tribe That Wouldn’t Die. Lynda A. Every so often, WWA has published Searchers remains my pick as Best West- Sánchez’s books include Apache Legends lists of best Western nonfiction books, ern Movie, but I’d often rather watch & Lore of Southern New Mexico: From the novels, etc. This Seven Men from Now. Sacred Mountain. time, it’s a little What makes a Western novel influ- different, but in ential? Well, D.B. Newton’s Range Boss James’s picks the same spirit that (1948) was the first original mass- • A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold (1949) lively literary dis- market paperback novel for any genre, a cussions generate. format that launched, and still launches, • Ishi in Two Worlds by Theodora Kroeber (1961) WWA president many careers. A.B. Guthrie Jr.’s The Big JOHNNY D. Chris Enss ap- Sky was a major influence on me, yet • Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. BOGGS pointed committee I’ve never written fiction about moun- Houston (2002) chairs, and committees chose important tain men or keelboats. How many writ- by S.C. Western nonfiction books and docu- ers owe Tony Hillerman thank-yous? • Empire of the Summer Moon Gwynne (2011) mentaries, top Western novels, signifi- The Virginian (1902) is considered by David cant movies and influential songs. the first Western novel, but Mollie E. • Killers of the Flower Moon Grann (2016) I get it. “Best” has many meanings. Moore Davis’s The Wire Cutters was “Favorite” isn’t permanent. Yester- published in 1899. Did Davis influence Sánchez’s picks day, my favorite song was “Deportee: Owen Wister? Andy Adams’s The Log • Apache Gold and Yaqui Silver by J. Plane Wreck at Los Gatos Canyon” by of a Cowboy (1903) was so important, Frank Dobie (1928) Woody Guthrie. Today it’s “All These it’s often called nonfiction despite being • The Conquest of Apacheria by Dan L. Things” by Joe Stampley – and I’m no written as a novel. Thrapp (1967) Stampley fan. Tomorrow it’ll return to Bad Girls was dramatically significant, • Unknown Mexico by Carl Lumholtz stopping all the Hollywood inroads (1977) BEST OF THE WEST Dances with Wolves paved. But Dances • Indeh: An Apache Odyssey by Eve LIST with Wolves likely isn’t made if John Ball with Nora Henn and Lynda A. Fusco doesn’t write Young Guns. Sánchez (1980, 1988) C.J. Box’s Influential Novels In addition to the committees’ lists, • The Lincoln County War by C.J. Box is the New York Times various WWA members were asked to Frederick W. Nolan (1992) bestselling author of Long Range. come up with their influential Western • The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie (1947) books or novels – leaving the meaning at WWA. C.J. Box sent in a Top 5, but • Little Big Man by Thomas Berger of influential and Western up to the indi- couldn’t break a tie for his last choice. (1964) viduals. Hey, Donnie Birchfield called Other Top 10s can be found on Pages 7, • True Grit by Charles Portis (1968) Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest a West- 28 and 29. • The Cowboys by William Dale ern. I say the same of John Steinbeck’s WWA publishes these lists to stimu- Jennings (1971) The Grapes of Wrath. late conversation. To make casual fans • Blood Meridian by Cormac Cheewa James, as you see, wanted to and even Western writers find Western McCarthy (1985) do her Top 10 with Lynda A. Sánchez. books, movies, documentaries and songs • Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry They met in the 1960s at Big Bend Na- that might have escaped their radar. (1985) tional Park and resumed their friendship Let the debates begin.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR BOARD MEMBERS ELECTIONS NOMINATIONS Chris Enss, Howard CONTRIBUTORS Candy Moulton Harlan Hague Melody Groves, Chair Phil Mills Jr. Kazanjian, Candy Moulton, Articles, columns, editorials, opinions and 271 CR 219 [email protected] Johnny D. Boggs, Thomas [email protected] Quackgrass Sally, announcements in Roundup will be issue- Encampment, WY 82325 David Morrell D. Clagett, Ollie Reed Jr. Pete Simpson, James A. oriented. Electronic queries and submis- SPUR® AWARDS sions only, please, emailed to roundup- [email protected] [email protected] Crutchfield (emeritus) FINANCE Tim Nicklas, Quackgrass [email protected]. Photographs and/or other (307) 329-8942 Rocky Gibbons illustrations should be hi-resolution jpegs Nancy Plain, Chair Sally, co-chairs ROUNDUP MAGAZINE at least 5x7 at 300 dpi, and can also be PRESIDENT [email protected] SUBSCRIPTIONS, Bob Clark, Chris Enss, [email protected] emailed or mailed on a CD to Johnny DELIVERY PROBLEMS, Chris Enss PAST PRESIDENT Candy Moulton D. Boggs, Editor, Roundup Magazine, 10 WISTER AWARD [email protected] Nancy Plain ADDRESS CHANGES Dovela Road, Santa Fe, NM 87508. All WEBSITE/MARKETING/PR Phil Mills Jr., Chair WWA [email protected] submissions will be copy-edited and, when VICE PRESIDENT Chris Enss, Chair Win Blevins, James A. Candy Moulton necessary, edited for length. Note: Material Phil Mills Jr. 2021 CONVENTION Johnny D. Boggs, Crutchfield, Chris Enss, 271 CR 219 published in Roundup, whether poetry or [email protected] Loveland, Colorado Loren D. Estleman, Candy nonfiction, is NOT ELIGIBLE for WWA’s Candy Moulton Encampment, WY 82325 Spur Awards competition. Candy Moulton, Executive Moulton [email protected] SECRETARY-TREASURER SOCIAL MEDIA Director (307) 329-8942 Roundup, Spur, Literature of the West for the Candy Moulton HOMESTEAD [email protected] Kellen Cutsforth World, and Western Writers of America in [email protected] FOUNDATION BOARD Members receive a $45 combination with the stylized WWA are MEMBERSHIP 4 4 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE Nancy Plain, Johnny D. subscription to Roundup® trademarks registeredFEBRUARY in the 2021 U.S. Patent and Rocky Gibbons Boggs, Kirk Ellis, Magazine. Trademark Office by Western Writers of [email protected] WHERE TO WRITE TO WHERE America, Inc.

218 February 2021 Vol 28 No 3.indd 4 1/15/21 8:17 AM BEST OF THE WEST These lists show top, important, significant, influential works By Johnny D. Boggs committee. The committees American society has developed a taste for “greatest” lists. also chose what to call these Greatest presidents. Best athletes. All-time movies. WWA is no lists: “Top” Western novels, exception. “Important” Western non- During its 60-plus years, WWA has often published its fiction books, “Significant” choices of genre favorites. Most recently, in 2013, WWA’s 60th Western movies, “Impor- anniversary, members were polled to pick the best Western tant” Western documentaries and “Influential” Western songs. novels, nonfiction books and short stories. A few years before While the theme is “Best of the West,” these aren’t “great- that, members were asked to select the best Western movies est” lists, so in all categories except song, selections are listed (2008), TV series (2009) and songs (2010). In 2000, members chronologically by year of publication/release. Many songs are picked the 20th Century’s best Western authors, novels, non- hard to date and/or have been covered countless times, so that fiction books, short stories, TV series and miniseries. WWA list is arranged by ballot tabulations. announced “best” Westerns in 1985 and 1995, too. If any choices don’t meet your approval, relax. These things th th This time, WWA president Chris Enss appointed chairs to aren’t permanent, and with 70 and 75 anniversaries of WWA head various committees. The chair selected members for each coming up, more “best” lists might be forthcoming.

Western history titles Novels from The Octopus from 1849 to 2012 to Cormac McCarthy By James A. Crutchfeld By Preston Lewis In late 2019, I was appointed by the In the 1981 Texas Observer essay “Ever A WWA board of directors to compile a list of Bridegroom: Reflections on the Failure of the 25 most important Western Texas Literature,” Larry McMurtry lament- nonfiction books to appear in ed the impact of “the country – or Western, the United States between 1840 or cowboy – myth” on the quality of Texas and the present, as chosen by a letters. committee of WWA members. Wrote McMurtry: “It was clear by then The list, chronologically by that this myth had served its time, and lost year of first publication, fol- its potency; insofar as it still functioned it lows. was an inhibiting, rather than a creative, Francis Parkman The California and Oregon factor in our literary life; the death of the Trail: Sketches of Prairie and cowboy and the ending of the rural way of Rocky-Mountain Life by Francis life had been lamented sufficiently, and there Parkman (1849): The Harvard- was really no more that needed to be said educated aristocrat’s account of about it.” his 1846 trek through the Great Whether he was being disingenuous or Plains and Black Hills to the merely throwing other writers off the trail, Rockies. McMurtry four years later published his Roughing It by Mark Twain classic Lonesome Dove, a Pulitzer Prize- (1872): Tongue-in-cheek mem- winning novel that emerged as the lead steer oir of young Samuel Clemens’s 1861–1867 in the 2020 list of top Western novels as travels across the Western frontier. compiled by active former WWA presidents. The American Fur Trade of the Far West After earning a 1986 Spur Award, Lone- by Hiram Martin Chittenden (1902): The some Dove became the basis for a 1989 televi- book that Owen Wister Award recipient Win sion miniseries that received seven Emmy Blevins said “laid the base for scholarship Awards and prompted the New York Times about Rocky Mountain fur trapping.” to note it “revitalized both the miniseries The Frontier in American History by and Western genres, both of which had been Frederick Jackson Turner (1920): Collection Cactus Book Shop in San Angelo, considered dead for several years. …” of essays, including Turner’s seminal 1893 Texas, top, and some other “important” Other authors making the Top West- nonfction books. Johnny D. Boggs work “Significance of the Frontier in Ameri- erns list ranged from Elmer Kelton to Jack can History.” Schaefer to Douglas C. Jones, each with WESTERN HISTORY (cont. on page 14) NOVELS (cont. on page 19) FEBRUARY 2021 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE 11

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Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: Evaluating the book’s significance, 50 years after its publication

Fifty years after the book’s publica- lished in 1970 and purported to be the tion, much has changed for indigenous first sort of Indian history of the West. peoples in the United States and I think that’s not actually true. I don’t Canada. Native American Studies de- think it’s the first, and I don’t think partments are found at most major uni- versities, Native literature is said to be

undergoing a renaissance and Native politicians are taking office in record numbers. Given the momentous politi- cal, societal and global events today, the time seemed ripe for a discussion it’s a Native history. It’s a book where and reevaluation of Dee Brown’s work. a white librarian by the name of Dee I spoke with the Native author David Brown put together a story of the West Treuer, professor of literature at the using a lot of contemporary accounts University of Southern California of Native people, but the framework and author of seven books of fiction, and the perspective and the narrative By David Heska Wanbli Weiden nonfiction and scholarship. Treuer is itself is down-the-middle popular his- Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Ojibwe from the tory, not particularly Native. Indian History of Leech Lake Reser- But the Red Power movement had al- the American West vation in northern ready taken over Alcatraz; the Ameri- by Dee Brown Minnesota. Most can Indian movement was just gearing (Holt, Rinehart & recently, he pub- up for all of its hijinks, both positive Winston, 1970) is lished The Heartbeat and negative. America was gripped the most success- of Wounded Knee: Na- with a pressing need to really look in- ful book of Native tive America from 1890 ward and inspect its character, as it was American his- to the Present (River- David Treuer Dee Brown tory ever published. head, 2019), which FIRST READS Translated into 17 languages, the work was nominated for “This image lingers after reading has never gone out of print and has the National Book [Bury My Heart influenced generations of readers. Award. Given that at Wounded The book presents the history of the the book contains Knee]. At the North American continent from the an explicit critique moment of first European settlement in 1492 to the of Brown’s work, I Sitting Bull’s late 1800s, but from the viewpoint of could think of no murder his Native peoples, rather than the coloniz- one better to discuss horse sat down ers. Thus, the book is highly critical of the significance of and raised a the U.S. government’s policies of con- Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and hoof. The horse, a gift from quest, genocide and assimilation, and whether its place in the pantheon of Buffalo Bill, had been trained to relies upon extensive historical docu- Native history should be revisited. Our perform this trick at the sound of mentation and original sources to sup- interview has been edited for clarity gunshots for his Wild West show. port its arguments. Published during the and brevity. However, some witnesses saw this turmoil of the civil rights era, Bury My Why was Bury My Heart at Wounded as a sign the horse was saluting the Heart at Wounded Knee resonated with Knee so important at the time? Why fallen chief when shots rang out. It readers and helped to spur awareness of was it such a seminal book when it is not an easily forgotten scene.” the injustices that had been visited on was first published? – Lynn Bueling, Natives and helped to launch a growing Well, Dee Brown’s book was pub- poet and newspaper columnist Native activist movement. lished at the right time. It was pub-

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an American present tense. of unparalleled expansion and greed Instead, the book tells that Natives and cries for freedom made by those are of the past and that our story is of who already possessed it at the expense sadness and of dissolution and distress. of those who didn’t. He ends in 1890 That narrative is not only untrue, it’s at the massacre at Wounded Knee, and also damaging. That was certainly the he goes on to say that the culture and narrative with which I built my own civilization of the American Indian self regard as a kid – that my reser- was destroyed. So, if you happen to vation was where ideas went to die, travel to a contemporary Indian reser- nothing good happened there, nothing vation and notice the poverty and the important happened there. hopelessness and the squalor, you will I longed to go someplace that mat- understand why. tered. It was hard to retrain myself What I love about my reservation and to rethink that the place I’m from isn’t the poverty and the hopelessness means more than simply trauma and and the squalor. We do have struggles, drama. And so that’s the problem with but there’s a lot more to it than that. that book. I think it can be a useful And there’s a lot more to the past than Wounded Knee monument. Johnny D. Boggs book if you keep that in mind. But Dee that. And so, I take his ending as my Brown’s book is the best-selling book starting point and I flip it around. In in the throes of the Vietnam War and about Native American history ever my book, 1890 was not the end of civil rights and just shy of Watergate published – 10 million copies in print, American Indian culture and civiliza- and the Pentagon papers. [almost] 20 different languages. It’s tion, and Wounded Knee should not And whenever America wants to never been out of print in 50 years. It’s be emblematic of that. take a good, hard look at itself, it time for a new book, and I’ve got just 1890 was arguably the lowest point always looks at us. We are the gauges the ticket. BURY MY HEART (continued on page 15) on the thermometer – Native people in I wasn’t aware of that number. I our history and the treatment of us by knew it’s never been out of print, but FIRST READS this country. Let’s measure ourselves 10 million copies! Clearly, it’s one “I had just started teaching my up against how we treat Native people. of the most important books in that Indian history And so it was a book that benefited it influenced so many people. But class when I from some good timing. whether it’s the best book is up for read [Bury My It was a massively important book debate. You explicitly state that you Heart at at the time, but now we have the wrote your book, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee]. benefit of being able to look back, Wounded Knee as a counternarrative Early on, I a generation or two later. So how to Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Is began to would you evaluate Bury My Heart at it a corrective or is it a companion to question his Wounded Knee in hindsight? Bury My Heart? information. After all, remember It’s OK. You know, it may be a It’s a replacement. You can read Dee Brown was a librarian, not a gateway drug, but it’s not even a good them as companions, I suppose. If historian – although I have to gateway drug. The problem with that you’re into historiography and literary admit that the title definitely was a book is not the information in it. The bibliography, sure. My book wouldn’t winner. He had so many factual information is fine. The problem with exist the way it is if not for Bury My errors that I cautioned my students that book is that it establishes and per- Heart at Wounded Knee. But it’s not about reading it. Then when I went petuates the same old story. The nar- just a counterfactual history, it’s a to [Arizona State University] for rative is the same old narrative – you counternarrative. I’m trying to create a my Ph.D., my professor, Robert know, Indians were great, they lived different kind of story with a different Trennert, assigned us to read it free and unfettered lives where they kind of shape. with the idea of listing all of the were true to themselves and their tribes I’ve read your book The Heartbeat errors we could find – and we all and their homelands. of Wounded Knee and I know the found many. … I can say one thing And then America happened. It central argument, but for those that positive about the book, however: perpetuates the same old tragic telling haven’t, I’d like for you to give us the He got people thinking on the of Native lives and Native histories as a thesis and how it differs from Dee topic and, fortunately, most of the necessarily diminishing arc. There’s no Brown’s. books that have followed are sense in that story that Native people Dee Brown says on the very first factual.” page, something to the effect of: This are actors in their own lives. There’s no – Valerie Sherer Mathes, book is predominantly about the Indi- sense in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Two-time Spur Award winner that we are American history as well as an Wars in the American West, a time FEBRUARY 2021 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE 13

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WESTERN HISTORY (from page 11) Irving Stone (1956): Platte River Road Narratives by Spur Award winner Merrill J. Mattes (1988): A descriptive The Trail Drivers of Texas: Interest- about the Califor- bibliography of eyewitness accounts of ing Sketches of Early Cowboys edited nia gold rush and travel over the Great Central Overland by J. Marvin Hunter (1920): Hundreds other key events by Route from 1812 to 1866. of recollections of adventures in the a writer known for Undaunted Courage : Meriwether cattle-drive era by members of the Old biographical novels Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Open- Time Trail Drivers’ Association. Paul Horgan and biographies. ing of the American West by Stephen The Great Plains by Walter Prescott Army Exploration Ambrose (1996): New York Times No. 1 Webb (1931): Influential and controver- in the American West, bestseller proved that readers remained sial study of the relationship between 1803-1863 by Wil- interested in Western history. th the land and the people west of the 98 liam H. Goetzmann The Contested Plains: Indians, Gold- meridian. (1959): Studies seekers, and the Rush to Colorado by We Pointed Them North: Recollections the Army’s part in Elliott West (1998): Traces the events of a Cowpuncher by E.C. “Teddy Blue” exploring the West leading to the Sand Creek Massacre Abbott and Helena Huntington Smith with a focus on topo- and Indian wars with a remarkable (1939): Memoir of a Texas cowboy graphical engineers. blend of ecology and who settled in Montana offers a de- The Buffalo Sol- history. lightful depiction of life on the 1870s- diers: A Narrative of the Negro Cav- Pacifc Destiny: 1880s ranges. alry in the West by William H. Leckie The Three-Century The Year of Decision: 1846 by Ber- (1967): First book to chronicle the Journey to the Oregon nard DeVoto (1943): Scholarly but Black soldiers on the Western frontier Country by Dale L. readable look at the events of “Mani- after the Civil War. Walker (2000): Spur- fest Destiny” that led to an Atlantic-to- Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An winning account of Pacific United States of America. Indian History of the American West by Dale L. Walker the discovery, explo- Across the Wide Missouri by Bernard Dee Brown (1970): Landmark book ration and settle- DeVoto (1947): Pulitzer Prize winner that Time magazine noted “tallies ment of the Pacific about the fur trade in the Upper Mis- the broken promises and treaties, the Northwest. souri River Basin. provocations, massacres, discrimi- Geronimo by Cheyenne Autumn by natory policies and condescending Robert M. Utley Mari A. Sandoz (1953): diplomacy.” (2012): Spur Award- Follows the tragic 1,500- The Plains Across: The Overland winning biography mile flight of Northern Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi of the controversial Cheyennes fleeing impris- West, 1840-60 by John Unruh (1979): Apache leader. onment in the Indian Ter- Pulitzer Prize finalist still regarded Panelists were Owen Wister Award ritory for their homeland. as one of the best recipients Will Bagley, Johnny D. Jedediah Smith and the Mari Sandoz researched narratives Boggs, James A. Crutchfield, Loren D. Opening of the West by of westward migra- Estleman, Max Evans and Robert M. Dale L. Morgan (1953): tion before the Civil Utley; and historians Chris Enss, Rod The American Histori- War. Miller and Candy Moulton. cal Review called this “a Cowboy Culture: In 2013, a survey was made to select scholarly and well-written A Saga of Five the 10 “all-time greatest nonfiction volume … which may Centuries by David books” published about the West since David Dary well serve as a base for a Dary (1981): 1953 (the 60th anniversary of WWA’s complete history of the Bestselling, Spur founding). Two of the titles on the fur trade of the West.” Award-winning 2019 survey – Bury My Heart at Wound- Bent’s Fort by David Lavender look at the work, ed Knee and Undaunted Courage – also (1954): National Book Award final- lifestyle and legend appeared on the 2013 review, and two ist about the 1833-1949 trading post of cowboys. more – Bent’s Fort and The Contested on the Santa Fe Trail in southeastern The Legacy of Plains – received honorable mentions. Colorado. Conquest: The Individual volumes that were part Great River: The Rio Grande in North Unbroken Past of of a larger, encyclopedic study, such as American History by Paul Horgan the American West Dan Thrapp’s Encyclopedia of Fron- (1954): Winner of the Pulitzer Prize by Patricia Nelson Limerick (1987): tier Biography, LeRoy R. Hafen’s The and the Bancroft Prize in History. Revolutionary myth-busting narrative Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Men to Match My Mountains: The that showed the economics involved in Far West, David A. White’s News of the Opening of the Far West, 1840-1890 by westward expansion. Plains and Rockies 1803-1865 and Ken- 14 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2021

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neth L. Holmes’s Covered Wagon Women Oregon: Powell’s Books – Founded in which is that we see Native peoples as as well as others, were not considered 1971, now with four Portland locations victims of history, not as historical ac- for the 2019 survey. and a specialty store. tors. You know, there’s a quote I put in Texas: Booked Up – Pulitzer-winner/ the book from Karl Marx, where he says Top Bookstores rare-book specialist Larry McMurtry’s that all men create history; they don’t Brick-and-mortal shops remain nirvana hometown institution in Archer City. for writers. Here are 10 favorites: Wyoming: The Whistle-Stop Mer- always create history with tools of their Arizona: Alcuin Books gets over- cantile – Douglas shop is also a deli and own choosing, but they make history, looked in Scottsdale but specializes in espresso stop. nonetheless. And that was sort of a guid- rare books. ing principle of mine as I started off. California: Argonaut Book Shop – BURY MY HEART (from page 13) In 1890, we were at a low point; we Near San Francisco’s Union Square, were very disenfranchised, we were very great source for California and Old West that Native communities in North disempowered, we were very vulnerable. history. America had from the time of con- Nonetheless, we have been making his- Colorado: Out West Books – Grand tact. Our populations were the lowest, tory before then and subsequently. Not Junction indy run by an owner who we were the most politically disen- with the tools of our choosing, not from knows and loves the West. franchised, and our control of our positions of advantage, but we’ve been Georgia: Gottwals Books – Family- homelands was at its most precarious. owned indy based in Byron has four re- making history, nonetheless. And not just Our control of our families was most gional locations, large inventory of new/ Native history, we’ve been making Ameri- used Western titles. precarious because of boarding schools can history. The other thing that I try to New Mexico: Bowlin’s Mesilla Book and allotment. Our population was un- argue against is the idea that Native his- Center – on Mesilla’s historic plaza, spe- der 200,000 at the turn of the century. tory is a sideshow to American history. cializes in Southwestern fiction, nonfic- So, 1890 was a low point, but not the I think if you want to understand tion. end – that’s my thesis. It was a point America – full stop – you have to know New York: Strand Book Store – A from which we have been emerging New York City legend, rare books total- Native history. Otherwise this country ever since. ing more than 18 miles. itself doesn’t come into focus. You can’t North Dakota: Western Edge Books – And my other thesis, of course, is that understand this country without know- Excellent selection of Western books and Dee Brown commits the same sin that ing Native history. friendly atmosphere in historic Medora. most historians of Native life commit,

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The trail to The Virginian

By David Morrell It’s the early 1880s. An Easterner journeying for the first time to Ameri- ca’s frontier finally arrives at Medicine Bow in Wyoming Territory. “Some notable sight was drawing the passengers, both men and women, to the window; and therefore I rose and crossed the car to see what it was.” Thus Owen Wister begins his Lobby card for the frst sound movie of The Virginian (1929), and James Drury, who played the role 1902 novel, The on the long-running NBC-TV series. Virginian: A Horse- Owen Wister the undulations of a tiger, smooth and James, kept warning her son that only man of the Plains, easy, as if his muscles flowed beneath his best would be good enough. His guiding readers to a window on a his skin” hurls a rope without seeming equally critical father – a glum, need- world that most to move and succeeds after many other to-be-practical physician – insisted Easterners couldn’t cowboys had failed. he become a businessman or else a imagine, then lead- That tiger-like cowboy is the novel’s lawyer. No less a musical authority ing them beyond title character, the Virginian. At the than Franz Liszt judged Wister’s piano that window to an age of 14, seeking freedom, he ran and composition skills to be superior alien universe that away from his family in the South and (the privileged family had that kind of Wister elsewhere roamed the frontier, combining chiv- social connections), but Wister’s father described as having alry with independence and resilience, grudgingly relented only enough to al- both the rugged personifying the modern world’s notion low his son a year to see what he could beauty of the moon of the fictional cowboy. Readers never accomplish as a composer. and the glory of Genesis. The “notable learn his name, just as they never learn Instead of taking the year, Wister sight” the narrator refers to is a corral the name of the first-person narrator, a immediately surrendered and agreed to in which a spirited horse evades every tenderfoot whose baggage has been lost work at a brokerage firm. Meanwhile, effort to be roped until a man “with and who tries to find his bearings on he wrote a failed novel, significantly what seems the edge of the world. titled A Wise Man’s Son, about a young FIRST READS It’s tempting to associate the narra- man who wants to become an artist and “At a third-grade-class library tor with Wister, who in 1885 arrived whose father insists he go into business. visit, I spotted a hardcover of The in Wyoming at the age of 24 after a Wister’s mother kept wondering why Virginian, nervous breakdown and a doctor’s ad- he persistently took his temperature and which I knew vice to recuperate in simple surround- checked his pulse. When she and his fa- only as a TV ings. At the time, the medical term for ther sent him westward, they dispatched show, so I Wister’s collapse was neurasthenia. Its two fortyish spinsters to accompany him checked out the symptoms included headaches, dizzi- and make sure he stayed out of trouble. book. Didn’t ness, stomach troubles, heart palpita- Wister’s journey required four days finish it, tions, insomnia and depression. The via train and a day and a half via though. I kept latter word sounds modern but often stagecoach before he finally arrived at a rereading the scene when Trampas appears in Wister’s letters. ranch owned by a family acquaintance. calls The Virginian a ‘son-of-a------.’ His parents and his physician were There, he reveled in a spartan, physi- I didn’t know writers could use baffled by the cause, but the reasons cal life, sleeping on dirt floors or else such language. As an adult, now seem obvious. Wister aspired to a under the stars, hunting, fishing, riding however, I finished the book and career in music, but his grandmother long distances, and herding cattle amid still love the literary conversations – famed Shakespearian actress, Fanny breathtaking scenery. between Molly and The Virginian.” Kemble – suspected he would be an That summer in Wyoming would – Johnny D. Boggs, engineer. His constantly critical mother be the first of many, during which he 2020 Owen Wister Award recipient had artistic pretensions and, mindful kept a notebook of what he observed of distinguished friends such as Henry or heard about, collecting the colorful

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details that fill The Virginian: for ex- suffered frequent attacks of neurasthe- ample, an eccentric hen named Em’ly, nia and referred to his “horror of the a party at which a prankster rearranged pen”), Wister recalled the enthusi- babies so that everybody went home asm with which readers had greeted with the wrong infant, and a poker those stories that featured a char- game in which an unhappy gambler acter named the Virginian. In the called another player a “son of a b----,” strongest, “Balaam and Pedro,” the to which the offended party replied the Virginian reacts to a rancher who equivalent of what became one of the savagely mistreats a horse. Wister most famous lines in Westerns, “When based the story on an incident he you call me that, smile.” himself had witnessed. His failure to Obeying his father’s directive, Wister intervene had left him ashamed, but in acquired a law degree from Harvard the story, the Virginian did what Wister and practiced in his family’s home city regretted not doing. Why not adapt of Philadelphia. But in his leisure, he other previously published stories so wrote stories about Wyoming, which that the main characters become the he submitted to magazines without Virginian? Wister thought. success until Harper’s started buy- In early 1902, during a vacation ing them in 1891. Easterners became in Charleston, South Carolina, he fascinated by Wister’s portraits of the combined those revised stories and, in West, so different from the clichés in an astonishingly productive two-week dime novels. In 1892, famed English period (uncharacteristic for him), wrote author Rudyard Kipling moved to 20,000 words of connecting material, Vermont, where he wrote portions of eventually doubling the length of the The Jungle Book. This prompted discus- stories. Some of them had a first-per- sions about why America didn’t have son narrator. its own Kipling to write about the West Uncertain how to change the view- as Kipling had written about the British point, Wister decided to allow the first Empire in India. In 1895, Harper’s be- person to come and go throughout gan publishing collections of Wister’s the book. The most dramatic use of stories, and critics started referring to the device occurs when the narrator, him as America’s Kipling. having visited Wyoming on numer- Under pressure to write a novel (he ous subsequent occasions, no longer a tenderfoot, happens upon a deserted FIRST READS barn where a group of vigilantes, including the Virginian, are about to “Many moons ago, when I first lynch two cattle thieves, one of whom read Owen Wister’s The Virginian, is a friend of the Virginian and whom it did not ring the narrator met on his arrival in Wyo- my chimes ming years earlier. (that dialogue Wister devoted most of The Virgin- is a tough sell). ian’s new material to schoolteacher Still, I knew it Molly Wood (Wister’s wife’s nickname was a classic – was Molly). Similar to the Virginian, OK, the classic the character had left her family – in – and I really her case, in Vermont – and headed wanted to like it. Maybe it was me. West to pursue her independence. So I tried again. Alas … Yet if The Wister later suggested that writing the Virginian is half as responsible for new material while under the roman- birthing this bountiful genre as tic influence of Charleston prompted learned people claim, I am grateful the emphasis on the love affair between and gunfights. Molly participates in the for its existence. Now … where’s Molly and the Virginian, who says he action, rescuing the Virginian when she my old copy of Lonesome Dove?” would gladly ride a hundred miles to finds him near death after an Indian – Matthew P. Mayo, spend only one hour with her. attack. Chivalric romance dominates, Spur-, WILLA- and Wrangler- The novel is as much a romance as though, as when during their wedding winning author it’s about ranching, rustling, lynching, night, before they share a tent, they

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bathe chastely, separately, on opposite ally totaled sales in the millions as well using his thumbs to gouge out the ani- sides of an island. as being adapted into a Broadway play, mal’s eyes. Roosevelt insisted that the The biggest difference from the four feature films, two movies-for-tele- gruesome detail was “unspeakable.” original stories is one that Wister vision, and a long-running television Censoring himself, Wister removed it emphasized in a note at the start of series. Few novels of any type have for the novel and thereafter, as in Lady the novel. Readers (Wister explained) been as popular and influential, provid- Baltimore, was careful to write nothing could “stand at the heart of the world ing the model for the fictional portrayal that he believed wouldn’t meet Roos- that is the subject of my picture” and of the cowboy, not to mention numer- evelt’s (and by extension his parents’, look around in vain for the reality of ous tropes in countless later Westerns, his grandmother’s, and high society’s) the novel. “It is a vanished world. No such as the schoolmarm whom the standards. journeys, save those which memory hero courts and the climactic one-on- In 1911, Wister’s wife’s father died. can take, will bring you to it now.” The one shootout between the hero and the Newspapers erroneously concluded it likes of the Virginian “will never come villain. was Wister himself who had died as again. He rides in his historic yester- Readers hoped for a sequel, but a consequence of persistent attacks day.” Wister mourned that chapters Wister didn’t oblige. Instead, his next of “nervous dyspepsia.” Reading his published during the 1890s and written novel, Lady Baltimore, published four obituaries, he found them “appall- in the present tense now needed “is” years later in 1906, was about polite so- ingly frank,” “extremely distressing” and “have” to be changed to “was” and ciety in Charleston (where Wister had and “patronizing.” One critic called “had.” completed The Virginian). From ranch- him, “A first-rate second-rate writer.” Indeed, much had changed – and ing, rustling, and chaste bathing in a More attacks of neurasthenia fol- quickly. In 1890, five years after mountain stream, he now wrote about lowed, sometimes keeping him in bed Wister’s arrival, Wyoming Territory southern manners and a cake, from for weeks, with bottles of aromatic had become a state. Also in 1890, the which the novel took its name. Darwin ammonium and veronal (a barbiturate) United States Census Bureau had de- Payne’s biography, Owen Wister: Chroni- next to him. clared that America had so many areas cler of the West, Gentleman of the East, Until his death from a cerebral of settlement that “there can no longer describes how Wister became a version hemorrhage in 1938, he avoided fiction be said to be a frontier line.” To quote of his socially aloof parents and even- and wrote mostly opinion pieces for from The Virginian, “The free road tually preferred Eastern aristocracy to newspapers (demanding that America became wholly imprisoned, running the populism of the West. “Life in the enter World War I, for example) as well between unbroken stretches of barbed negligent irresponsible wilderness tends as books about topics such as Anglo- wire.” to turn people shiftless, cruel, and American relations and his friendship During recent trips to the West, incompetent,” he at last decided. with Theodore Roosevelt. The excep- Wister had encountered ever-increasing Craving the right sort of approval, tion is a 1928 collection of stories visitors. Once-pristine vistas were now Wister dedicated The Virginian to his about what was now the Old West. The crowded and, in his opinion, spoiled. former Harvard classmate and now collection’s wistful title suggests that Venting his disapproval, he didn’t president of the United States, Theo- Wister’s memories often took him back seem to consider the irony that many dore Roosevelt: “Some of these pages to his long-ago summers in Wyoming, of those visitors had traveled West you have seen, some you have praised, When West Was West. because of stories he had written in the one stands new-written because you The obituary writer was wrong, of 1890s. blamed it.” The surprising admission course. Wister was hardly a second- In 1902, The Virginian was respon- refers to “Balaam and Pedro,” the story rate author. The Virginian remains a sible for attracting even more westward that had inspired Wister to write The major achievement, both as a vivid, visitors. A phenomenon, it sold 50,000 Virginian. eyewitness depiction of the vanished copies in two months, another 50,000 In the original, one of the cruelties frontier and as a novel that changed the copies in the third month, and eventu- the rancher inflicted on his horse was Western genre.

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NOVELS (from page 11)

two novels on the list, and from Willa Cather to Owen Wister to Lucia St. Clair Robson. Rounding out the top five behind Lonesome Dove were True Grit by Charles Portis, Wister’s The Virginian, Robson’s Ride the Wind and The Sea of Grass by Conrad Richter. Other books making the top 10 were Kelton’s The Time It Never Rained, Schaefer’s Shane, The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Til- burg Clark, Jones’s The Court Martial of George Armstrong Custer and The Big Sky by A. B. Guthrie Jr. The conundrum in selecting the top Western novels of all time is in assess- ing how much of the choice is based on the literary quality of the book or the fact that a movie or television series resulting from the novel greatly broad- Mural of acclaimed Western novelist Elmer Kelton in downtown San Angelo, Texas. Johnny D. Boggs ened the public exposure of the work. his nickname, a schoolmarm love inter- (Alfred A. Knopf, 1936) Ten of the top dozen books on this est and a climactic six-gun showdown. The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van list had theatrical or television movies The third book chronologically on the Tilburg Clark (Random House, 1940) based on them and 17 of the top 25, or list was Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie Jr. (Wil- 68 percent, spawned movies. by Zane Grey, whose work further liam Sloane Associates, 1947) I once read that a novel that sells shaped the formula of the Western Shane by Jack Schaefer (Houghton a 100,000 copies is a rousing success genre. Mifflin, 1949) while a movie that sells only 100,000 The themes, plotlines and memes of Warlock by Oakley Hall (Viking tickets is a dismal failure, so the magni- The Octopus, The Virginian and Riders of Press, 1958) tude of scale is vastly different between the Purple Sage permeate the Westerns From Where the Sun Now Stands by the two media. Good literature may that followed. At least one book from Will Henry (Random House, 1959) make for good movies and good screen each decade of the 20th Century appears Hombre by Elmore Leonard (Ballan- presentations may drive viewers to the on this list, with the 1970s earning tine Books, 1961) original works, though that is hard seven spots and the 1980s claiming four Monte Walsh by Jack Schaefer to quantify with certainty. The com- spots, including Lonesome Dove, which (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1963) mon thread tying all the top Westerns graded out at the top of the list. True Grit by Charles Portis (Simon & together is a good story and, in many The list was compiled by past WWA Schuster, 1968) cases, a plotline about change. presidents Kirk Ellis, Sherry Monahan, The Day the Cowboys Quit by Elmer The earliest book on the list is The Rita Cleary, Loren D. Estleman and Kelton (Doubleday, 1971) Octopus (1901) by Frank Norris, who Preston Lewis, who chaired the selec- The Time It Never Rained by Elmer fictionalized California’s Mussel Slough tion committee. Members were asked to Kelton (Doubleday, 1973) tragedy that brought to a fatal culmina- rank their top 25 Western novels of all The Shootist by Glendon Swarthout tion an 1880 conflict between the San time. The rankings were weighted and (Doubleday, 1975) Joaquin Valley wheat growers/ranch- totaled to determine the final list from Centennial by James A. Michener ers and the Southern Pacific Railroad. among 63 nominated books. (Random House, 1974) Reduced to its basics, The Octopus The Top 25, by year of publication: The Court Martial of George Arm- illustrates the tension between the The Octopus: A Story of California by strong Custer by Douglas C. Jones individual and the forces threatening Frank Norris (Doubleday, 1901) (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976) his security or prosperity, a theme that The Virginian by Owen Wister (Mac- Arrest Sitting Bull by Douglas C. permeates Westerns. millan, 1902) Jones (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1977) Second book on the list by date of Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Wild Times by Brian Garfield (Mac- publication, Wister’s The Virginian Grey (Harper & Brothers, 1912) millan, 1978) (1902) is generally credited with estab- Death Comes for the Archbishop by Aces and Eights by Loren D. Estleman lishing the Western novel as a literary Willa Cather (Alfred A. Knopf, 1927) (Doubleday, 1981) genre and the cowboy as the American The Sea of Grass by Conrad Richter folk hero. It features a hero known by NOVELS (continued on page 29) FEBRUARY 2021 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE 19

218 February 2021 Vol 28 No 3.indd 19 1/15/21 8:17 AM BEST OF THE WEST A tale of two periods of Western cinema From Staff Reports *** Western films are divided into two 20 Significant Western Movies, groups – those made before 1969’s The 1903-1969 Wild Bunch and those that followed. The Great Train Robbery (1903); Edmond O’Brien’s words to Robert Hell’s Hinges (1916); The Iron Horse Ryan at the end of that movie – “It (1924); Cimarron (1931); Stagecoach ain’t like it used to be, but it’ll do” – (1939); The Ox-Bow Incident (1943); seem like they could have been carved Red River (1948); The Treasure of the on a tombstone for the Western. But Sierra Madre (1948); Broken Arrow Western films weren’t buried in 1969; (1950); The Gunfghter (1950); Win- Hispanic protagonist, albeit one played some of them just adapted. chester ’73 (1950); Westward the Women by Burt Lancaster. That’s why these “significant” West- (1951); High Noon (1952); Shane The Cowboys (1972). Director: Mark erns are divided into categories. (1953); Seven Men from Now (1956); Rydell. Screenplay: Irving Ravetch and The first list, of movies released The Searchers (1956); The Magnifcent Harriet Frank Jr., from William Dale from 1903 through 1969, was pub- Seven (1960); Lonely Are the Brave Jennings’s novel. John Wayne gave one lished in Roundup Magazine in 2014. (1962); A Fistful of Dollars/Per un of his best late-career performances in Notes about those films can be found pugno di dollari (1964); The Wild Bunch this violent updating of the cattle-drive at WesternWriters.org/round-up/2014- (1969). film as traditionally represented by Red dec-ru-20westerns.pdf. 1969 is consid- River. ered a turning point for Western films 25 Significant Western Movies, Jeremiah Johnson (1972). Director: because Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild 1970-present Sydney Pollack. Screenplay: Edward Bunch redefined what a Western film Little Big Man (1970): Director: Anhalt and John Milius, from Vardis could be. Film historians David Mor- Arthur Penn. Screenplay: Calder Will- Fisher’s Mountain Man and Raymond rell, Kirk Ellis, Robert Nott, Thomas ingham, from Thomas Berger’s novel. W. Thorp and Robert Bunker’s Crow D. Clagett and Johnny D. Boggs made This epic, picaresque rendering tells those selections. the American Indian side of Manifest Film historian, producer and screen- Destiny, with many indigenous actors writer C. Courtney Joyner chaired the front and center. committee (Morrell, Ellis, Boggs and Monte Walsh (1970). Director: Wil- True West magazine editor Stuart Rose- liam A. Fraker. Screenplay: David Z. brook) that selected the list of Western Goodman and Lukas Heller, from Jack films released from 1970 to the present. Schaefer’s novel. Cinematography After 1969, Westerns approached the like a Frederic Remington or Charles genre either by deliberately embracing Russell painting and a fairly accurate pre-1969 conventions or by continuing depiction of working cowboys at the the reinvention that The Wild Bunch close of the era of open ranges. had begun. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971). Direc- “As the 1970s dawned, the Western tor Robert Altman. Screenplay: Alt- was now in the hands of new gen- man and Brian McKay, from Edmund erations of filmmakers,” Joyner says. Naughton’s novel McCabe. Unorthodox “What would happen over the next 50 Western has as many detractors as years wasn’t the death of the Western, defenders but is as has been declared time and again, one of the earliest but an injection of creative energy revisionist West- that included respect for what’s come erns of the 1970s. before while exploding myths and Valdez Is Coming clichés.” (1971). Director: Titles are listed by year of release. Edwin Sherin. For the 1970-present list, made-for-TV Screenplay: Ro- movies and miniseries were consid- land Kibbee and David Rayfiel, from ered, although only Lonesome Dove is Elmore Leonard’s novel. A clear-eyed included here.. account of frontier bigotry with a rare Young Guns 20 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2021

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Killer. Western Heritage Wrangler Ulzana’s Raid (1972). Director: Rob- imitated revenge yarn. Award winner was a landmark moun- ert Aldrich. Screenplay: Alan Sharp. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973). tain-man drama. An unsparing depiction of the cruelty Director: Sam Peckinpah. Screenplay: Junior Bonner (1972). Director: Sam and misunderstanding in the Apache Rudy Wurlitzer. Peckinpah’s last West- Peckinpah. Screenplay: Jeb Rosebrook. wars, this film is one of the best of ern, a bitter revisionist bookend to his “I made a film where nobody got what have been called “Vietnam” West- elegiac Ride the High Country, was clum- shot,” Peckinpah said, “and nobody erns. sily edited by MGM. Re-edits in 1988 went to see it.” Ignored in 1972, this High Plains Drifter (1973). Director: and 2005 established its classic status. film has become revered for its charm- Clint Eastwood. Screenplay: Ernest Blazing Saddles (1974). Director: Mel ing take on rodeos, families and the Tidyman. Eastwood brought the spa- Brooks. Screenplay: Brooks, Norman urbanizing of the West. ghetti Western aesthetic to America in Steinberg, Andrew Bergman, Richard a popular, much-discussed and much- Pryor and Al Uger. Much referred-to

N WESTER VIDEO

Selecting a best Western release this year is as impossible For Mackenzie, whose specialty is Euro-films, caring about as grabbing ahold of a favorite book as it churns in a tornado. cinema always comes into play. “When determining which Our televisions are bursting with streaming platforms, offering titles we release, it doesn’t simply come down to a question thousands of films to help keep us planted during lockdowns of cold, hard cash,” he says. “Sometimes we decide that it’s as theaters are being shuttered. worthwhile to take a risk on a lesser-known film as part of In the middle of the 2020 chaos, there an effort to build an audience, introducing customers to titles has been a resurrection of physical media that they might not otherwise have paid any attention to.” despite cries that the form is done. Clint That philosophy is embraced by Arrow, Criterion and other Eastwood, Randolph Scott, Sergio Leone companies, resulting in many superb Western Blu-rays this and even William Castle programmers, year, with multiple extras. along with TV classics, are among the “We pay considerable attention to the bonus features we C. COURTNEY dozens of Westerns that have seen special include alongside the films,” Mackenzie says. “With vintage JOYNER releases. It’s a gluttony of riches under titles, we seek out key players whenever possible and we’re the worst of circumstances, as companies acutely aware that we might be recording the last interview continue to give Westerns, classic and obscure, these presenta- a particular actor or director will give, so we regard it as a tions. matter of preserving history. In addition, we aim to ensure Michael Mackenzie, senior producer of Arrow Films, the presence of a strong critical voice to place these films into knows about giving a movie its proper respect. “One of the their proper perspective. Fortunately, knowledgeable critics truly great benefits of the Blu-ray revolution of the last de- and historians are eager to give these titles the love and atten- cades has been the opportunity for films such as the spaghetti tion they deserve.” Western to be re-evaluated as great films in their own right *** and shaking off the reputation they have unfairly gained as C. Courtney Joyner reviews Western Blu-rays and DVDs merely inferior ‘copies’ of their American counterparts,” for Roundup Magazine. Mackenzie says. FEBRUARY 2021 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE 21

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Western parody continue to influence Western film- it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona.” remains one of the makers. Written by, directed by and starring most financially Young Guns (1988). Director: Chris- American Indians, this film-festival successful Westerns topher Cain. Screenplay: John Fusco. favorite was selected for preservation ever. Surprise “Brat Pack” blockbuster re- by the National Film Registry in 2018. The Outlaw introduced Westerns to young viewers Open Range (2003). Director: Kevin Josey Wales (1976). and paved the way for major Westerns. Costner. Screenplay: Craig Storper, Director: Clint Lonesome Dove (1989). Director: from Lauran Paine’s novel The Open Eastwood. Screen- Simon Wincer. Screenplay: William D. Range Men. Western Heritage Wrangler play: Phil Kaufman and Sonia Cher- Wittliff, from Larry McMurtry’s novel. Award winner is a further example of nus, from Forrest Carter’s novel. This CBS miniseries based on the Pulitzer- the significance of Costner and Robert re-imagining of the Western revenge and Spur-winning novel won seven Duvall in the genre. trope was a financial success and Emmys, was nominated for 12 more True Grit (2010). Director/Screen- chosen for inclusion in the National and reinvigorated Western filmmaking play: Joel and Ethan Coen, from Film Registry. Eastwood considers it a and Western publishing. Charles Portis’s novel. Quirky remake career highpoint. Dances with Wolves (1990). Director: of the popular 1969 movie that won The Shootist (1976). Director: Kevin Costner. Screenplay: Michael John Wayne his only Oscar, this Spur Don Siegel. Screenplay: Miles Hood Blake, from his novel. The first West- winner garnered 10 Oscar nomina- Swarthout and Scott Hale, from Glen- ern to win an Oscar for Best Picture tions. don Swarthout’s novel. In his last per- since Cimarron in 1931. Spur- and The Revenant (2015). Director: Ale- formance, John Wayne plays a dying Western Heritage Wrangler Award- jandro G. Iñárritu. Screenplay: Mark gunfighter in this superior adaptation winner. L. Smith and Iñárritu, from Michael of Swarthout’s Spur Award-winning Unforgiven (1992). Director: Clint Punke’s novel. Highly fictionalized novel. Eastwood. Screenplay: David Webb account of the Hugh Glass legend is Heaven’s Gate (1980). Director/ Peoples. Eastwood’s last Western to told with a bravura technique that set Screenplay: Michael Cimino. The date won four Oscars, including best breathtaking new technical standards. much-publicized failure of this film picture and director, and the Spur Oscar winner for director, actor (Leon- bankrupted United Artists and made Award. ardo DiCaprio) and cinematography. studios reluctant to invest in Westerns Tombstone (1993). Director: George Hell or High Water (2016). Director: throughout 1980s. P. Cosmatos. Screenplay: Kevin David Mackenzie. Screenplay: Taylor The Long Riders (1980). Director: Jarre. Despite a troubled production, Sheridan. Sheridan established himself Walter Hill. Screenplay: Bill Bryden, this O.K. Corral film scored at the box as the auteur of the Modern West with Steven Phillip Smith, Stacy Keach, office and became a cult favorite. this Spur-winning Texas caper drama, James Keach. Casting brothers as Smoke Signals (1998): Director: Chris a Western filtered through a noir sen- brothers was inventive, but Ry Cood- Eyre. Screenplay: Sherman Alexie, sibility. er’s arrangements of traditional songs from his short story “This is What

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‘Ken Burns is the runaway master’ for documentaries

By Candy Moulton Dave Garroway with a live feed from Gene Autry’s Melody The hundreds of documentary films concerning the Amer- Ranch in Newhall, California. The Western TV boom was ican West that have been made since the 1950s represent di- in full swing and this Sunday afternoon event covered the verse filmic techniques and varied production values. What history of past Westerns to Gary Cooper’s shooting of The is apparent from a review of this material is that they all are Hanging Tree. strongly rooted in good storytelling. Films range from fully Directed by John Ford, written and directed by Peter scripted and narrated documentary to those that are action- Bogdanovich (1971). Covering the complete film canon of oriented involving actual events that are filmed in real time, award-winning director John Ford with film clips from the and those that are re-enacted for dramatic effect. silent to the sound classics, rare home movies and inter- A panel of WWA scriptwriters and views with the actors most associated with his movies. It producers submitted choices for im- also features numerous Western sequences and even an in- portant documentaries over the past 70 terview with the curmudgeon director in Monument Valley. years. Without exception, the work of Restored and expanded in 2006. Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan was rec- Hollywood: Out West, British series produced and written ommended by all involved in the review by Kevin Brownlow (1980). Narrated by James Mason. This process making them the single most film traces the early silent film development of the Western recognized documentary filmmaking genre. Filled with clips and interviews, including Yakima Ken Burns team of the period. Canutt, Olive Carey, Tim McCoy, John Wayne and more. “My favorite of all is the terrific Ken Outlaws and Lawmen, John Byrne Cooke, writer and Burns PBS series The West (1996), nar- producer (1996). This three-part film was one of the first to rated by Peter Coyote with characters use re-enactment as a technique to bring history to a new portrayed by famous actors Eli Wallach, audience. John Lithgow, Blythe Danner, Jason Ro- The West, Ken Burns (1996). This nine-episode series bards, Keith Carradine, Tantoo Cardinal, chronicles the trek West, with actors voicing diaries and Indian activist Russell Means and many written accounts of pioneers, explorers, settlers, soldiers, Dayton Duncan other big name actors,” wrote Thadd and businessmen. It is also a sympathetic look at minorities Turner of Talmarc Productions. and especially the destruction and fall of American Indians. Television writer/producer Rob Word agreed: “I certainly Lewis & Clark: The Journey of The Corps of Discovery, Ken feel that Ken Burns is the runaway master and, perhaps, I Burns (1997). One of the best documentaries about Manifest could have given him his own category.” Destiny ever assembled. Spur Award winner. Heidi Osselaer, who teaches documentary filmmaking and Fly Girls, American Experience, Laurel Ladevich (1999). Set is also a writer/producer, said: “I like filmmakers who take in Sweetwater, Texas, where the Women Airforce Service risks and bring us unexpected history, who dig until they Pilots (WASPs) trained. Who knew American male pilots find new information, and who value truth over a well-worn sabotaged women pilots? Who knew women taught men to popular narrative.” fly bombers? The Top 20, in chronological order: Boone and Crockett: The Hunter Heroes, Wide Wide World: The Western (1958). An amazing, written by Paul Andrew Hutton with star-packed NBC broadcast connecting New York host Dan Gagliasso (2002). Study of pioneers Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. Spur Award winner. Daniel Boone and The Westward Move- ment, Native Sun Productions; Gary Foreman, executive producer; Carolyn Paul Andrew Hutton Raine, producer; Paul Andrew Hutton, writer (2002). Western Heritage Wrangler Award winner. Wild West Tech (2003-2005) 41 episodes, produced by The History Channel. Hosts David Carradine (23 episodes), Keith Carradine (16 episodes). These episodes are filled with recreations of various technologies that helped define the Western expansion. Cowboys & Outlaws: The Real Wyatt Earp, Half Yard Pro- ductions for History, written and directed by Pip Gilmour (2009). Western Heritage Wrangler Award winner traces the legendary lawman’s life.

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In Pursuit of a Dream, filmed by Boston Productions for The Dust Bowl, Ken Burns, producer and director; Dayton the Oregon-California Trails Association, Candy Moulton Duncan, writer (2012). The oral histories make this series writer/producer (2009). A blend of living history and docu- poignant and significant. Burns generated original primary mentary storytelling as 24 students and three teachers follow source materials during the filming that make a lasting the Oregon-California Trail. Spur Award winner. contribution to history. Western Heritage Wrangler and Spur The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, Ken Burns, pro- Award winner. ducer and director; Dayton Duncan, writer and producer (2009). Narrated by Peter Coyote. An all-star cast of readers brings life to the story of the United States National Parks system from inception to reality. This film is filled with stun- ning new HD cinematography of America’s beautiful loca- tions. Another Ken Burns masterpiece of American history. Spur Award winner. Geronimo: We Shall Remain, Episode 4 of American Ex- perience series, America Through Native Eyes, Sarah Colt and Dustinn Craig (2011). Osselaer writes, “I invited Dustinn Craig to discuss the making of the film to a class I was teaching at ASU a few years back. He told my students how American Experience producers wanted him to make a celebratory film about Geronimo, but when he interviewed his people, the Apaches, they viewed Geronimo as trouble- maker who burdened them with decades of abuse. Craig ultimately won the battle with the producers and made the The Drift: An American Cattle Drive, written and di- film he felt represented the Native point of view. He is a rected by Geoff O’Gara/The Content Lab for Wyoming modern age warrior for Native history.” PBS (2016). Buck, directed by Cindy Meehi (2012). A look at cowboy This documentary chronicles the story of an important Buck Brannaman, whose horse-training methods inspired ranching tradition. Spur Award winner. the novel and movie The Horse Whisperer. Spur Award win- Power’s War: Arizona’s Deadliest Gunfght, Dodge Billings- ner. ley and Cameron Trejo (2015). Trejo wanted to write about the feud that caused this gunfight but couldn’t reconcile the existing conflicting stories. Osselaer, the historical consul- tant, ransacked archives for two years and found that the truth was that larger forces, not a feud, caused the conflict. Spur Award winner. Ol’ Max Evans – The First Thousand Years, Lorene Mills,

Paul Barnes (2017). Initially shown in festival and special venues, the film about the Western Writers Hall of Fame inductee and author of The Rounders and The Hi Lo Country was aired on New Mexico PBS in 2019. Route 66 Women: The Untold Story of the Mother Road, Katrina Parks, a three-part series to be released by PBS in 2021. Diverse women and working-class women take center stage in this incredible feat of documenting the women on the Mother Road. 24 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2021

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‘Lonesome Dove is the Star’: On the set of a classic

By Loren D. Estleman distrusted by many in the television Minutes after I stepped onto the industry. It had a reputation for snarky Cook Ranch near Santa Fe, New reviews and features patently slanted to Mexico, Danny place the subjects in a bad light. After Glover rode past some false starts, I learned to introduce me on horseback, myself as a Western novelist on tem- wearing the quilted porary assignment, and not the enemy. pants cowhand From then on I was welcome. Josh Deets had I came prepared. Although I’d read made for himself in the 843-page novel in hardcover, I

CBS Larry McMurtry’s bought the paperback to refresh my Danny Glover frontier masterpiece memory during the long flight from –and I knew I was watching a classic in Detroit. Knowing who’d been cast in Gus (Robert Duvall) and Lorena (Diane Lane). the making. It was May 31, 1988. I was the leading roles, I saw it through new CBS on the set of Lonesome Dove. eyes. Tommy Lee Jones and Robert In that role, Glover was constantly I was on assignment for TV Guide. Duvall were ideally suited to play ag- denied entrance to saloons and hotels The opportunity had come my way ing Texas Rangers Woodrow Call and because he was Black. courtesy of a favor- Gus McCrae, whose longtime partner- “No. Deets is much more racial. able review of my ship resembled that of an old married Malachi went through life placing no novel Bloody Season couple. limitations on himself. Deets has obvi- in the Los Angeles Nevertheless, I was afraid Hollywood ous limitations about what he can do, Times. It was my would drop the ball, as it often does where he can go.” first experience when adapting a book to the screen; I asked, “How does the star of the covering a motion- but that first sight of Glover in those modern police drama Lethal Weapon Diana Ossana Larry McMurtry picture shoot. I was crazy-quilt pants settled the point. identify with a cowpuncher?” He as nervous as any Once I’d established myself as a smiled. “The moment I’m on a horse, of the story’s characters contemplating Western fan who wanted the miniseries I’m there.” a trail drive across 3,000 miles. to succeed, I found everyone on the Diane Lane, whom I caught up with With good reason. TV Guide was staff eager to cooperate, with one ex- over a vegetarian salad in downtown ception: They were reluctant to arrange Santa Fe, was equally pumped. Look- an interview with Duvall, who had a ing far too fair and put-together for reputation for staying in character and resenting interruption. “He’s not the FIRST VIEWS kind of guy you hang out with,” said “When Lonesome Dove first aired, one cast member, who asked not to I was working the nightshift at a be identified. “You don’t make small convenience talk.” This was bad news. Failure to store. Everyone connect with the star would be fatal. who walked in Danny Glover helped me forget that the door raved problem temporarily. He granted an about it. I was interview in his trailer, sitting with his so mad at God patchwork trousers down around his for making me ankles while he treated multiple cuts work at such a and scratches on his legs. He said he crummy place and missing the kept forgetting to put on long under- series, I stubbornly refused to wear to protect him from cactus in watch it for 20 years. When I Deets’s outlandish britches. finally did, I found it to be every- I asked him, because of the Black thing everyone said about it and cowboy’s equal status with his white more.” colleagues, if the character was less – Vicky J. Rose, “racial” than Malachi, the drifter he’d TV Guide cover announcing Lonesome Dove’s Producer, Jingle-Bob Productions premiere. Courtesy of Loren D. Estleman played in Silverado three years earlier. FEBRUARY 2021 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE 25

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the scenes she was about to shoot as Lorena, badman Blue Duck’s sun- broiled, battered hostage, she called herself a “money player”: “I always have the character sort of tucked away in a body part. I have her, and I protect her, and I choose to expose her when it’s appropriate. When you roll the camera, I jump out of nowhere and do everything.” She especially enjoyed Duvall’s encouragement and on-set pranks, which lightened the mood and often led to an enriched performance. As she described Tommy Lee Jones, his intense dedication rivaled Duvall’s. “He can be such an ominous presence in the room,” she said, remembering their experience shooting The Big Town. “You Gus and Call (Tommy Lee Jones) on the drive to Montana. CBS don’t want to tap him on the shoulder or you might get swatted. I came to the As the production continued, Duvall been hit. Jones whooped: “We saved set the first day on Lonesome Dove, and remained elusive. B-team coverage of Deets!” I walked up to Tommy Lee, and it was Gus McCrae’s pursuit by murderous Jones, smoking (Marlboros, like, ‘Hey, baby!’ and he picked me up Comancheros, and his desperate deci- naturally) in his trailer, sported Call’s and swung me around. I didn’t know sion to bail out of the saddle and cut now-iconic white beard and collar- we’d got on so well.” his bay quarterhorse’s throat to create a length hair. In a scene just shot, She offered insight into the character defensive breastwork, came off in one he’d laughed at a Duvall line – an of Lorena, the story’s proverbial prosti- take. The set was cleared, too quickly act distinctly foreign to McMurtry’s tute with a heart of gold. “She’s keep- to engineer a meeting. humorless trail boss. I asked him about ing herself closed and only exposing Instead, I buttonholed Joey Hamlin, this deviation from McMurtry. He said, the real person inside to Gus. Lorrie’s a the owner of that important mount – a “I think a man without humor has virgin inside.” “falling horse,” trained to drop to the shown himself to be not only a boring ground on command. (In the bad old man, but a poor leader.” FIRST VIEWS days, tripwires were used, often with “How would you feel,” I said, “if “I didn’t finish reading [Lonesome tragic consequences.) Hamlin had the real Captain Call appeared at this Dove] because I got wind of trained the animal, named “Instant moment?” Jones laughed again. “He’s the fact Gus Coffee,” to fall to the left instead of here now!” was going to to the right, as was more common, Two days into the shoot, I had yet die, and I giving camera crews more choice in to pin down Duvall. Although he was decided not to their shots. The gambit paid off: Instant described as friendly – at one point he go through it. Coffee’s prior credits included Rambo flew in a troupe of Argentinian tango- But I went III and Young Guns. Said Hamlin, “I’m dancers to entertain the cast and crew – through it in going to ride this horse straight into the the staff continued to stall arranging an the movie, time old folks’ home.” interview. I fretted: TV Guide wouldn’t and again, and so did my kids …. The star horse was the Hell Bitch, accept an article that failed to include It was Blue Duck’s death that Woodrow Call’s ill-tempered gray. This the star. impressed my daughter. She was one had four stand-ins: one to buck, Then the cavalry came. about 5 when she watched him one to kick, one to stand still and one Before filming the latest in what may hurl himself from the jail window, to lead around by its reins. The biter have been a record number of prairie and asked, pensively, ‘Mama, did topped the bill. burials, a staffer asked everyone to Blue Duck fail his life?’ It takes a Later, I watched McCrae and Call pile into the nearest SUV when lunch great, timeless story to make a scrambling to provide cover for Deets, was called. (Thus preventing the pres- family sit and ponder the notion of whose attempt to rescue an Indian ence of too many automobiles on the whether a person can fail their child would bring on his own death. outdoor set.) When the scene wrapped, life.” On the first take, they fired too soon, I climbed aboard the one most con- – Elizabeth Crook, before the native American boy with venient – and found myself sitting Spur Award-winning novelist the lance reached Glover. The boy, directly behind Duvall in the front pas- behaving professionally, fell as if he’d senger’s seat. 26 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2021

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I couldn’t believe my luck. I intro- He came back to an ovation from cast seemed wrong to spoil so pleasant a duced myself, extending a hand across and crew. visit with work. the seat. He grasped it warmly and in- The feat was nearly superhuman: He On my last day, I was told Frederic vited me to his trailer for an interview. was allergic to horses. Schroder stayed Forrest, cast as Blue Duck after Charles He was a genial host. Dining on aboard for 16 grueling weeks thanks to Bronson declined the part, was difficult; tuna salad, he reveled in the opportu- a combination of determination and but he wasn’t present that week, so I nity to play the kind of role he got to frequent inoculation. was unable to hear his side. do on stage: a character part, rather During a break, he shot a rattlesnake The Cook Ranch’s old-town set pro- than the stereotypical hero or villain he “I came to the set the frst day on vided background for Duvall’s moving usually portrayed in Hollywood. “A lot death scene, and Jones’s preparation for Lonesome Dove, and I walked of people thought I should play Call, his Homeric trek back to Texas to bury but my ex-wife, who’s very sharp – up to Tommy Lee, and it was Gus. The false-fronted structures and she’s an actress – she said, ‘Bobby, you like, ‘Hey, baby!’ and he picked dirt streets stood in for busy Fort Smith, should play Gus.’” The cast was ideal: me up and swung me around. I Arkansas, and raw-boned Miles City, “Better-prepared, overall, better people didn’t know we’d got on so well.” Montana. The drive from modern-day to work with.” About Jones: “When – Diane Lane Santa Fe took 30 minutes and crossed you act with someone who’s there, it’s with a bow and arrow, ate it, and 100 years. not like acting. You’re there.” had it skinned to make boots. “Crazy My article appeared in the February On the phone, I interviewed Su- Ricky,” said Duvall. 4, 1989, issue of TV Guide – drastically zanne DePasse, the executive producer And the women? “Great women!” cut to make room for more photos and (with screenwriter Bill Witliff) who’d Duvall said. Lane, a professional since a passage I didn’t write, claiming Texas acquired the rights from McMurtry. age 6, bridged their on-screen romantic native Jones’s insistence on doing his She was as stoked as everyone on the age difference with ease. The female own horseback riding led to “a confron- set. “We [have] an embarrassment of cast brought experience and personal tation” – a common subject of discus- riches. Great source material and the magnetism to a traditionally masculine sion in Hollywood, and quickly agreed best people in the business.” drama. to by the producers. The magazine So far, everyone I’d interviewed, from I called Robert Urich (black sheep wanted a controversy. director Simon Wincer to Witliff, who’d Jake Spoon) in One casualty was the entire Danny managed to distill a Boston, where Glover interview. It was among the best, 300,000-word novel he was wrapping and I’m mortified that he might think into a 400-page up his TV series me a racist for snubbing the only Black teleplay, agreed that Spenser for Hire. He actor in the cast. this was a happy was floored when A photo of Duvall and Lane did shoot, with all par- I recalled that his make the cover: at the bottom of a

ties having the time CBS first Western role staggered stack of five, pitching ratings Robert Urich of their lives. was in a Gun- “sweeps week,” with a swimsuit model Simon Wincer Ricky Schro- smoke episode. “I didn’t know anyone in a skimpy bikini at the top. der was no exception. He beamed remembered that!” He told me to watch The feature cost $20 million and in- when I called him “Rick;” it seems I for Anjelica Huston’s close-up when volved 90 principal cast members, 1,000 was the first journalist not to address Duvall rides up to his old flame’s ranch extras, 90 crew members, 30 wranglers, the 18-year-old actor as “Ricky.” He house. “Absolutely radiant!” 100 horses and 1,500 head of cattle. opened up to me immediately. “I didn’t Despite all the hardships of location It’s been 30 years. Most of those I met even know how to ride a horse before shooting in wild places (duststorms, would go on to other memorable as- this movie. They took me out to Texas rainstorms, high winds, blizzards), signments, but none with the impact of three weeks early. I learned how to everyone I met said he or she would do Lonesome Dove. Its success, critically and rope cattle, bulldog cattle, tie cattle another Western in a minute. in ratings, rescued both the Western and and run. It’s fun.” William Sanderson, already well- the miniseries format from extinction. Duvall was impressed. “He spent known as Larry (of Newhart’s “Larry, Witliff’s assessment was classic un- four days in the saddle and it was if it Darryl, and Darryl”) was genuine and derstatement: “Everybody’s attitude is was four years.” down-to-earth over lunch in the com- that Lonesome Dove is the star.” He didn’t exaggerate. During Deets's missary tent. He pocketed the special Duvall’s own prediction was closer moving burial scene, a stray Styrofoam mouthpiece he wore as “Lippy,” the to the mark (and the actor who created cup threatened to blow into the frame piano-player, in order to eat and pass Tom Hagen, Don Vito Corleone’s con- and spoil the take. Schroder leapt into the time in friendly conversation. I siglieri, should know): “This is like the the saddle, galloped out, and scooped enjoyed his company so much I never Western version of The Godfather on TV. the cup from the ground rodeo-style. used my notebook or tape recorder. It I think it’s gonna be a hit.”

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AUTHORS’ INFLUENTIAL NONFICTION LISTS

Jane Little Botkin Art T. Burton Doreen Chaky Award-winning Jane Little Botkin’s Retired history professor Art T. Doreen Chaky, author of Terrible The Girl Who Dared to Defy: Jane Street Burton has written four history books Justice: Sioux Chiefs and Soldiers on the and the Rebel Maids of Denver is due on the Western frontier and numerous Upper Missouri, is working with co- out this month from the University of articles for Western magazines. author Adrienne Stepanek on a book Oklahoma Press. • Hell on the Border by S.W. Harman about Northern Plains lynchings. • The Oregon Trail by Francis (1898) • The Mountains of California by Parkman (1847) John Muir (1894) • Oklahombres, Particularly the Wilder • On the Border with Crook by John C. Ones by Evett Dumas Nix as told • Trails Plowed Under by Charles M. Bourke (1891) to Gordon Hines (1929) Russell (1927) • Banditti of the Plains by Asa • Marshal of the Last Frontier by Zoe • Men to Match My Mountains by Mercer (1894) Tilghman (1949) Irving Stone (1956) • The Chisolm Trail by Sam P. • Pictorial History of the Wild West • Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Ridings (1936) by James D. Horan and Paul Dee Brown (1970) • The Longhorns by J. Frank Dobie Sann (1954) • The Plains Across by John D. (1941) • The Buffalo Soldiers by William H. Unruh Jr. (1979) • The Mescalero Apaches by C.L. Leckie (1967) • Atlas of the Lewis and Clark Sonnichsen (1958) • West of Hell’s Fringe by Glenn Expedition, Vol. 1: The Journals of • Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Shirley (1968) the Lewis and Clark Expedition by Gary E. Moulton (1983) Dee Brown (1970) • The Black Seminoles by Kenneth W. • Blood and Thunder by Hampton Porter (1996) • Exploration and Empire by William B. Goetzmann (1993) Sides (2006) • Fort Reno and the Indian Territory by • So Rugged and Mountainous by Will Stan Hoig (2000) • The Lance and the Shield by Robert M. Utley (1993) Bagley (2010) • Black Gun, Silver Star: The Life and • Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Legend of Frontier Marshal Bass • Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Gwynne (2011) Reeves by Art T. Burton (2006) Ambrose (1996) • Deadly Affrays: The Violent Deaths of • Wild Bill Hickok: The Man and His the U.S. Marshals by Robert Ernst Myth by Joseph G. Rosa (1996) Kellen Cutsforth (2006) Kellen Cutsforth has authored numerous books and articles about the history of the American West Paul L. Hedren and served as an editor, reviewer and Paul L. Hedren, who retired from president of several Western history a long career in the West with the organizations. National Park Service, is a Spur • The North American Indian by Award-winning historian of the Sioux Edward S. Curtis (1907-1930) War. • Black Elk Speaks by John G. • Custer’s Luck by Edgar I. Stewart Neihardt (1932) (1955) • Custer Died for Your Sins by Vine • Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem by Deloria Jr. (1969) James C. Olson (1965) • Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by • Phil Sheridan and His Army by Paul Dee Brown (1970) Andrew Hutton (1985) • Son of the Morning Star by Evan S. • The Lance and the Shield by Robert Connell (1984) M. Utley (1993) • The Legacy of Conquest by • Crazy Horse by Kingsley M. Bray Patricia Nelson Limerick (1987) (2006) • The Lance and the Shield by Robert • The Killing of Crazy Horse by M. Utley (1993) Thomas Powers (2010) • Undaunted Courage by Stephen • Custer’s Trials by T.J. Stiles (2015) Ambrose (1996) • Grant by Ron Chernow (2017) • Blood and Thunder by Hampton • Regular Army O! by Douglas C. Sides (2006) McChristian (2017) • Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. • Lakota America by Pekka Gwynne (2011) Hämäläinen (2019)

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AUTHORS’ INFLUENTIAL FICTION LISTS NOVELS (from page 19) Candace Simar John D. Nesbitt Candace Simar learned to love Author of traditional Western, Ride the Wind by Lucia St. Clair Rob- Westerns from her father. “Dad always contemporary and retro/noir fiction, son (Ballantine, 1982) carried one in his back pocket,” she John D. Nesbitt has won four Spur The Assassination of Jesse James by says. “He’d sneak a read whenever he awards and has been a finalist twice. could get away with it.” the Coward Robert Ford by Ron Hansen The Virginian by Owen Wister • (Knopf, 1983) • The Virginian by Owen Wister (1902) (1902) Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry Pasó Por Aquí by Eugene Manlove • (Simon & Schuster, 1985) • O Pioneers! by Willa Cather (1913) Rhodes (1926) All the Pretty Horses by Cormac Mc- • My Ántonia by Willa Cather (1918) The Postman Always Rings Twice by • Carthy (Alfred A. Knopf, 1992) • A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess James M. Cain (1934) Other novels receiving votes: A Distant Streeter Aldrich (1929) The Sea of Grass by Conrad Richter • Trumpet by Paul Horgan; Angle of Repose • Hannah Fowler by Janice Holt (1936) by Wallace Stegner; Bless Me, Ultima by Giles (1956) Of Mice and Men by John • Rudolfo Anaya; Bugles in the Afternoon • Johnny Osage by Janice Holt Giles Steinbeck (1937) by Ernest Haycox; The Dark Wind by (1960) The Big Sleep by Raymond • Tony Hillerman; Down the Long Hills • Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry Chandler (1939) by Louis L’Amour; The Earthbreakers (1985) The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie Jr. • by Ernest Haycox; The Enemy Gods by • Last of the Breed by Louis L’Amour (1947) Oliver La Farge; Forty Lashes Less One by (1987) Shane by Jack Schaefer (1949) • Elmore Leonard; The Great Horse Race • Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier • Riders of Judgment by Frederick by Fred Grove; The Hi Lo Country by (1997) Manfred (1957) Max Evans; The Homesman by Glendon • Comanche Moon by Larry • Welcome to Hard Times by E.L. Swarthout; House Made of Dawn by McMurtry (1997) Doctorow (1960) N. Scott Momaday; Little Big Man by Thomas Berger; The Long Rifle by Stew- Susan K. Salzer Irene Bennett Brown art Edward White; The Man Who Killed Author of four novels and many short Award-winning Irene Bennett Brown the Deer by Frank Waters; Match Race by stories, Susan K. Salzer’s most recent has written numerous novels set in Fred Grove; The Milagro Beanfield War story, “Final Thoughts,” appeared in the West for young readers and adults by John Nichols; The Monkey Wrench the March/April issue of Ellery Queen since 1969 – the most recent, Tangled Gang by Edward Abbey; No Survivors by Mystery Magazine. Times, released in 2020. Will Henry; Old Yeller by Fred Gipson; • Black Elk Speaks by John G. • We Must March by Honoré Willsie People on the Earth by Edwin Corle; The Neihardt (1932) Morrow (1925) Rainbow Trail by Zane Grey; Return • Hombre by Elmore Leonard (1961) • Smoky the Cowhorse by Will James to Red River by Johnny D. Boggs; The • Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner (1926) Rounders by Max Evans; The Searchers (1971) • Caddy Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie by Alan Le May; The Song of the Lark • Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry Brink (1935) by Willa Cather; Stranded: A Story of (1985) • The Sea of Grass by Conrad Richter Frontier Survival by Matthew P. Mayo; • Woe to Live On by Daniel Woodrell (1936) The Terrible Teague Bunch by Gary Jen- (1987) • The Way West by A.B. Guthrie Jr. nings; The Treasure of the Sierra Madre by • Montana 1948 by Larry Watson (1949) B. Traven; The Turquoise by Anya Seton; (1993) • Giant by Edna Ferber (1952) Under The Fifth Sun by Earl Shorris; The • Potter’s Fields by Frank Roderus • Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor Untamed Breed by Gordon D. Shirreffs; (1996) (1955) The Wind by Dorothy Scarborough; • A Road We Do Not Know by • Home Mountain by Jeanne Winter in the Blood by James Welch; The Frederick J. Chiaventone (1996) Williams (1990) Wolf and the Buffalo by Elmer Kelton; • No Country for Old Men by Cormac • These is My Words by Nancy E. and The Wonderful Country by Tom Lea. McCarthy (2005) Turner (1998) • Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles • The Hearts of Horses by Molly (2007) Gloss (2008)

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By Micki Fuhrman “Ghost Riders in the Sky” perpetu- ally tops Best Western Songs lists – even in Rolling Stone. So no surprise it hit No. 1 as most influential song in WWA’s survey of Marty Robbins songwriters Jon Chandler, Allan Chapman, W.C. Jameson and Carol Markstrom and music historian Ralph Estes. In 1948, park ranger/songwriter/ac- (“Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye”), their hot breath he could feel. tor Stan Jones wrote adding pounding hoofbeat rhythm Of the 100-plus artists who have what Jameson calls “a mini-novel in and hair-raising lyrics. recorded it, Johnny Cash’s version is three minutes.” “Ghost Riders,” report- Their brands were still on fire and their a standout. His thunder-deep deliv- edly inspired by a disastrous stampede, hooves were made of steel. ery puts listeners in the saddle with borrows a minor-key Irish melody Their horns were black and shiny and phantom riders “trying to catch the

WESTERN MUSIC

Defining the Western song King of the Cowboys, at the end of episodes of their 1950s- 60s Western TV show. in three-quarter time Some songs are more apparently Western than others. It’s I about wore out my grandmother’s recording of “New San easy enough to tell that “Big Iron” and “El Paso,” Marty Antonio Rose.” Robbins compositions recorded on his 1959 album Gunfighter That song, by Bob Wills and his Texas Ballads and Trail Songs, are Western. Both revolve around Old Playboys, along with “Happy Trails,” by West gunfights. Dale Evans, and “Rawhide,” by Dimitri But I’d argue that Dave Stamey’s “Orange Cove Auto Re- Tiomkin and Ned Washington, marked pair and Smog,” about a hard-luck, hard-working car mechan- me deep in my young years and shaped my ic, and “At the Truck Stop,” a contemporary chase song, both love for Western music. on Stamey’s 2015 album Western Stories, are just that. But are all of them Western songs? What Ask me what my favorite Western song is today and I’ll OLLIE makes a song Western? say “The Strawberry Roan,” a traditional work about a bronc REED JR. WWA Spur entry guidelines proclaim rider who meets his match. a Western song has lyrics “dependent in He’s about the worst bucker I’ve seen on the range whole or in part on settings, characters, conditions or customs He’ll turn on a nickel and give you some change indigenous to the American West or early frontier.” Ask me tomorrow and I may say “Navajo Rug,” the Ian “Rawhide,” the theme song for the 1959-66 CBS-TV series, Tyson-Tom Russell song about a waitress in a canyon-Colora- qualifies. It’s about cowboys and cattle drives. do diner. Keep them dogies rollin’ Rawhide. Aye, aye, aye, Katie But the Wills’s classic is a “broken song of love.” If it’s Whatever became of the Navajo rug and you Western, as I believe it is, it’s due to its setting, a moonlit path Lots of things go into making a Western song. But if you beside the Alamo, and its Western swing style. love this music, you’ll know it when you hear it. The closest the lyrics in Evans’s “Happy Trails” gets to West- *** ern is It’s the way you ride the trail that counts. “Happy Trails” is Ollie Reed Jr. reviews Western music for Roundup Maga- Western because Evans sings it with her husband, Roy Rogers, zine. FEBRUARY 2021 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE 31

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devil’s herd across the endless skies.” And we all sing along, Water … cool, clear water. “Yippee yi yay, yippee yi oh …” At No. 4, the Sons of the Pioneers’ signature song (also A lyric dropped into Marty Robbins’s head as he drove by Nolan), “Tumbling Tumbleweeds,” salutes the humble through Texas on his way to Phoenix for Christmas: “Out rolling weed of the West with a lovely descending melodic in the west Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a motif. In no other recording is the distinctive Pioneers Mexican girl.” By the time he got to Phoenix – oops, wrong “voice” showcased more beautifully. Artists from all genres song list – he had finished a draft of No. 2 pick and Robbins have drifted along with the “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” – mega-hit, “El Paso,” wherein a rowdy cowboy falls for (and among them, Bing Crosby, Pat Boone and … the Supremes. kills for) black-eyed Felina (the name, inspired by childhood (Western music purists: Googling the last version is not classmate, Fidelina). Things don’t turn out well for the cow- advised.) boy but he does get the girl, albeit briefly. Tied at No. 5, “The Ballad of High From out of nowhere Felina has found me, Noon: Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Kissing my cheek as she kneels by my side. Darlin’” (1952, Ned Washington/ Cradled by two loving arms that I’ll die for, Dimitri Tiomkin) started the trend of the One little kiss and Felina, good-bye. narrative movie theme song. Composer The record’s nine verses and three bridges topped nearly Elmer Bernstein said it precipitated the five airtime-busting minutes. Grady Martin lent Spanish- demise of the classical film score. Tex style guitar licks, with future “outlaw” Jim Glaser singing Ritter’s haunting recording utilized only three instruments: guitar, accordion and an unusual Novacord (early synthesizer) percussive line. Also at No. 5, “The Dying Cowboy,” a cowhand’s plain- tive dirge, traces murky origins to the mid-to-late 1800s. Most historians give credit to Francis Henry Maynard (1853-1926). It shares DNA with “The Cowboy’s Lament” (the titles are sometimes interchanged) and, over time, the lyrics to each evolved into “The Streets of Laredo” and “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie.” Depending on the version, the locale varies from Laredo Bob Nolan to Austin to Tom Sherman’s barroom, but the central char- sky-high harmony. acter is always a cowboy “clothed in white linen” who sor- Teenager Bob Nolan – of the original Sons of the Pioneers rowfully declares, “I’m shot in the breast and I know I must – submitted a poem called “Cool Water” as a high school as- die.” The chorus paints perhaps the bleakest image found in signment. Years later, the poem became the stirring lyrics to any Western sad song. this survey’s No. 3 most influential song, which isn’t about So beat the drum slowly, play the fife lowly water at all but, rather, the absence of it. The singer and his Play the death march as you carry me along pack mule chase a desert mirage, pitifully crying … Take me to the green valley, there lay the sod o’er me Dan, can ya see that big, green tree? For I’m a young cowboy and I know I’ve done wrong Where the water’s runnin’ free And it’s waitin’ there for me and you? WWA’s Pen & Ink From Staff Reports WWA’s inagural Western music CD, Pen & Ink, Voice and Strings – Echoes from the New Frontier, is still available. Released in 2016 at the WWA convention in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and produced by Spur Award- winning songwriter and novelist Jon Chandler, Pen & Ink features several Spur Award-winning compositions performed by many of today’s premier Americana singer-songwriters. To order, go to the WWA store at WesternWriters. org.

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