BOOK REVIEWS white heritage, straddled both cultures, heirs to one of the greatest family NONFICTION working tirelessly to protect the Dakota dynasties in rodeo history. In this Spur culture while accepting new ways such finalist for contemporary nonfiction, THOMAS G. ALEXANDER as farming, raising cattle and schools to the writing is simple, direct and urgent, Brigham Young and the Expansion of the survive the new realities. Extensive end- evincing a veteran reporter’s eye for the Mormon Faith notes and a detailed bibliography are telling detail. Heart-pounding scenes University of Oklahoma Press included. Every student of the Dakota of rodeo action convey the adrenaline- Hardcover, 392 pages, $29.95 peoples should read this book. stoked atmosphere with the immediacy OUPress.com – Bill Markley of a documentary film. – Kirk Ellis Thomas Alexander’s biography NATHAN E. BENDER is a new entry in the University of The Art of the English Trade Gun in JULIA BRICKLIN Oklahoma Press’s Oklahoma Western North America Polly Pry: The Woman Who Wrote the Biographies Series. A noted scholar in McFarland & Company West Mormon and Western history, Alexan- Paperback, 171 pages, $45 TwoDot Books der has written a biography intended McFarlandBooks.com Hardcover, 206 pages, $24.95 for the general reader, though special- This detailed and meticulously GlobePequot.com ists will find much of value in his book. researched book “directly addresses the Polly Pry, first female journalist Given that much of what is out there is question of why particular ornamental for the Denver Post, was adventurous, either anti-Young or adulatory, Alexan- patterns of known symbolic signifi- outspoken and perhaps a creator of fake der carefully sifts fact from legend as he cance were chosen for Native American news. “Polly” (Leonel Ross Campbell) examines the numerous controversies in trade items.” The narrative draws from might have invented some of the stories which Brigham Young was embroiled. the works of 17th and 18th Century her readers avidly followed. Did she re- These include the issue of plural English rifle-makers, whose guns were ally travel to Paris and Moscow or inter- marriage, the real guilty parties in the used by early American fur men for view Pancho Villa in Mexico? Author Mountain Meadows massacre, and the bargaining with their Indian clients Julia Bricklin expertly offers all of the so-called Mormon War of 1857. Read- and neighbors. The book is heavily evidence and sums up Pry’s six-decade ers might be surprised at the number of illustrated with clear, black-and-white career: “Above all, Polly Pry showed excommunications of dissident Mor- photographs of some of the weapons as that a woman wielding a pen could mons in the early years after the revela- well as by the design elements engraved shape the West as well as any man tions of Joseph Smith. For anyone upon them. This book will be enjoyed holding a gun.” Pry ruffled feathers, unfamiliar with Young’s leadership and by anyone interested in American fur- and some wanted her dead, going so the growth of the Mormon church this trade history, Indian trade guns and the far as to shoot as she opened her front biography will prove both informative artistic abilities of the gunmakers who door. Bricklin put in thorough work on and fascinating. produced these beautiful firearms. this 2019 Spur finalist for biography, – Abraham Hoffman – James A. Crutchfield neatly presenting all of the research GARY CLAYTON ANDERSON while at the same time giving readers JOHN BRANCH Gabriel Renville: From the Dakota War an entertaining glimpse into what made The Last Cowboys: A Pioneer Family in to the Creation of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Leonel Ross Campbell tick. the New West Reservation, 1825-1892 – Denise F. McAllister W. W. N o r t o n & C o. South Dakota Historical Society Press Hardcover, 288 pages, $26.95 KEVIN BRITZ and ROGER L. Hardcover, 220 pages, $29.95 WWNorton.com SDHSPress.com NICHOLS This intimate and unflinching ac- Tombstone, Deadwood and Dodge City: Gabriel Renville (1825-1892) played count of the Wright family of Utah’s at- Re-Creating the Frontier West a key role in establishing the Lake tempt to sustain their ranching heritage University of Oklahoma Press Traverse Reservation for the Sisse- in changing times benefits tremendously Hardcover, 266 pages, $32.95 ton and Wahpeton Dakota people in from New York Times reporter-at-large OUPress.com northeastern South Dakota stretching John Branch’s ability to capture the In this absorbing book, Kevin Britz, into southeastern North Dakota. This lyricism of the American West and the professor emeritus of history at the Uni- biography of Renville recounts not hard realities of modern “cowboy” liv- versity of Arizona, and Roger L. Nich- only events of Renville’s life but also ing. The compelling narrative juxtapos- ols, a museum professional and writer the struggles of the Dakota peoples to es the challenges faced by patriarch Bill who died in 2011, chronicle how three maintain their way of life as the influx Wright to preserve the family’s holdings iconic Old West towns – Tombstone, of settlers and demands of the federal against encroachment with the competi- Arizona; Deadwood, South Dakota; government forced changes upon them. tion between his sons and grandsons, and Dodge City, Kansas – used that Renville, who was of mixed Dakota and JUNE 2019 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE 37 37 heritage to boost struggling economies. ment experiences and the hardships of federal financing to construct a Western But it took time before citizens in those a Mexican friend who journeys home transportation empire that had, as Jim three former boomtowns accepted that to visit his dying mother, only to be DeFelice puts it, “a veritable monopoly historical images of violence weren’t forced into an illegal return crossing, over delivery in an area they expected necessarily bad for business. “To present goes beyond politics to portray the heart to boom in population.” Their effort their cities as modern, promoters tried and spirit of the individual people who was not soon forgotten, in no small part to deny that picture or to present it as inhabit our Southwestern borderlands. due to Buffalo Billy Cody’s featuring the just an early step in local development,” The region’s forbidding yet magnificent Pony Express in his Wild West extrava- the authors write. “Those efforts failed.” landscapes come alive on every page ganza. Although records have been lost As anyone who has visited Tombstone, of the book, a deserved double Spur and tall tales told (Cody most likely was Deadwood or Dodge City recently winner for contemporary nonfiction and no young rider), DeFelice smoothly know. first nonfiction book. delivers all the truths, myths and uncer- – Johnny D. Boggs – Kirk Ellis tainties in this Spur finalist for historical nonfiction. FRANCISCO CANTÚ JIM DeFELICE – Gregory Lalire The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches West Like Lightning: The Brief, from the Border Legendary Ride of the Pony Express BENJAMIN DREYER Riverhead Books William Morrow Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Hardcover, 256 pages, $26 Hardcover, 357 pages, $27.99 Guide to Clarity and Style PenguinRandomHouse.com HarperCollins.com Random House Son of a park ranger in Texas’s That William Russell, Alexander Hardcover, 291 pages, $25 Guadalupe Mountains and a four-year Majors and William Waddell’s Pony RandomHouseBooks.com Border Patrol veteran, Francisco Cantú Express flashed in the historic spotlight A new punctuation/grammar book brings unique insight to this beautifully for only 18 months, April 1860-October wouldn’t normally get attention, let written account of immigration and 1861, was no surprise to the enterpris- alone an enthusiastic review in The New backlash. In evocative, impassioned, ing trio. They knew from the start their York Times, except that in this case the often achingly personal language, the rapid horseback mail service would be book is by Benjamin Dreyer, copy chief author succeeds in putting a universal a short-lived project because transcon- at Random House. This informative, human face onto both sides of the most tinental telegraph and railroad services sometimes hilarious discussion about contentious issue of our times. Cantú’s loomed on the horizon. Their goal, copy-editing is a page-turner as the parallel focus on his own law enforce- ultimately unrealized, was to get enough mysteries of serial commas, problematic The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful Discover How Their Trails Crossed Tom Hor n: Blood on the Moon New by Chip Carlson Nighthawk Rising ! A Biography of Accused Cattle Rustler Horn was a death sentence to rustlers and the devil incarnate to homesteaders. When he was Queen Ann Bassett of Browns Park arrested for the murder of 14-year-old Willie by Diana Allen Kouris Nickell, it ignited a firestorm of controversy Ann Bassett was known as which has raged for over 100 years. Chip Carl- the “Queen of the Cattle Rus- son’s research into this true crime story leads tlers.” Queen Ann lived a life the reader to ask if justice was served. adventure and controversy on trade paper • 384 pp • $19.95 the Outlaw Trail in Colorado, Wyo ming, and Utah. She Butch Cassidy: My uncle broke bread with Butch Cas- “Bill Betenson is the great-grandson of Butch sidy, had her life turned up- Cassidy’s younger sister, Lula Parker Betenson. side down by notorious range His own quest for answers has been a lifelong detective Tom Horn, and pursuit. His writing reveals a comprehensive, stood tall against powerful objective, and balanced approach, an open dis- cattle barons. course of reason. He equally covers the var- Anyone with an interest ious, and at times conflicting, accounts and in Western History will want fairly reconsiders the evidence of record.” this comprehensive book! —Larry Pointer— author of In Search of Butch Cassidy trade paper • 416 pp • $19.95 or trade paper • 192 pp • $19.95 Only 300 limited edition signed hardcovers • 416pp • $35 To order or request a free catalog: High Plains Press PO Box 123, Glendo, WY 82213 1-800-552-7819 www.highplainspress.com 38 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE JUNE 2019 apostrophes and subject-predicate agreement are solved.