MONTANA 1948 by Larry Watson

From the summer of my twelfth year I carry a series of images more vivid and lasting than any others of my boyhood and indelible beyond all attempts the years make to erase or fade them ….

A young Sioux woman lies on a bed in our house. She is feverish, delirious, and coughing so hard I am afraid she will die.

My father kneels on the kitchen floor, begging my mother to help him. It’s a summer night and the room is brightly lit. Insects cluster around the light fixtures, and the pleading quality in my father’s voice reminds me of those insects – high-pitched, insistent, frantic. It is a sound I have never heard coming from him.

My mother stands in our kitchen on a hot, windy day. The windows are open, and Mother’s lace curtains blow into the room. Mother holds my father’s Ithaca twelve-gauge shotgun, and since she is a small, slender woman, she has trouble finding the balance point of its heavy length. Nevertheless, she has watched my father and other men often enough to know where the shells go, and she loads them until the gun will hold no more. Loading the gun is the difficult part. Once the shells are in, any fool can figure out how to fire it. Which she intends to do.

There are others – the sound of breaking glass, the odor of rotting vegetables …. I offer these images in the order in which they occurred, yet the events that produced these sights and sounds are so rapid and tumbled together that any chronological sequence seems wrong.

The above is not a spoiler since it is the first thing written on the first page of Larry Watson’s novel, one that has been characterized as a literary page-turner. Those are fairly rare, perhaps almost as rare as literary Westerns. Well, how about a literary page-turner set in the West? Now, that is virgin territory. But as the title tells us, this is not a historical Western. So, readers that do not enjoy Westerns need not shy away from it.

I read this soon after it was published in 1993. It is true that one can’t judge a book by its title or its cover, and I didn’t do that. No, I judged it by both its title and its cover (an oil painting of the Yellowstone valley). Only when I began reading did I discover that it was a coming of age story. For me, that was an added bonus.

At some point I read it a second time and then recently I gave it a third reading. Now, I do read quite a lot of books twice, but it really has to resonate with me if I turn to it a third time.

The narrator is middle-aged David Hayden looking back to the summer of 1948 when he was twelve years old. It was a summer of lost innocence. It was a summer in which he learned that truth is not always what we believe and that power can be abused, but those are not the hardest lessons he learned. Because of a scandal, a murder, and a suicide, he also learned that doing the right thing isn’t always easy, but it is especially hard when the choice lies between family loyalty on one hand and justice on the other. 

The book expertly evokes a time and a place in prose that has been variously described as ‘understated,’ ‘precise,’ ‘clear,’ ‘crisp,’ and/or ‘restrained.’ I would accept those, but would add elegant.

******
“Part family memoir, part psychological drama, part historical adventure tale, part elegy to a place and a lost way of life ….”
-- David Huddle, 1993 National Fiction Prize Judge

Larry Watson

DEAR COMMITTEE MEMBERS by Julie Schumacher

Ms. Nan A. Talese
Doubleday Publishing
1745 Broadway
New York, NY 10019

Dear Ms. Talese:

I saw online that you were the contact person for Doubleday Publishing and that manuscripts must be submitted by agents because you do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Well, relax Nan, that isn’t why I am contacting you.  

No, I have several other reasons I would like to discuss with you:

• I became aware of the book Dear Committee Members when a friend recommended it to me.  I also liked the opening line that you all used in your description of the book: Finally, a novel that puts the 'pissed' back into epistolary. Very clever.

• It is a clever book.  Epistolary novels are tricky propositions and Julie Schumacher pulled it off.  She was able to do that because it is obvious that she is intimately acquainted with the academic world that she describes in the epistles that her protagonist, a professor of creative writing and literature, writes to – well, to everybody – but especially to the many administrators, who, by the way, outnumber the full time classroom teaching professors at his university.  That places his institution smack dab in the mainstream and I could feel his pain.

• Some of the epistles made me laugh out loud and some of them made me cuss like a sailor, because they were so on target.  I spent many years as the chair of my department in the small college where I taught.  I took the job for the same reason that people in Schumacher’s book did: because nobody else would take the job and somebody had to.  It was a thankless job and I accomplished little, but somebody had to do it.  I also took on the distinguished sounding job of President of the Faculty Forum, because nobody else would take the job and somebody had to.  It was a thankless job and I accomplished little, but somebody had to do it.

• But here is the real reason I am contacting you.  I purchased a first edition (used, but nevertheless, first edition), hard cover copy of the book. When I reached page seven in my reading, I discovered that there is no page seven. There also is no page eight – or nine – or ten. They were not torn out.  It is obvious that they were never there.  Is this what putting “pissed back into epistolary” means?  If so, it worked.  

I’m not requesting a refund, because I really enjoyed the book.  In fact, it is my favorite book of the year.  But I do think that I am owed something.  By my calculations there are at least two – maybe three – epistles missing from my copy.  I am asking that you please do one of two things: 1) send me the missing epistles in an email or 2) mimeograph them and send them via USPS.

I trust that since you are not being swamped with unsolicited manuscripts that you will be able to find the time to do this for me.

I await your reply -- or the missing epistles.


Sincerely,
Stormy W.

BUTCHER'S CROSSING by John Williams

John Williams (1922-1994) wrote four novels.  None of them, however, sold many copies during his lifetime.  I remember some years ago seeing and scanning stories about him with headlines such as The Best Writer You Never Heard Of, or something similar.  And that certainly applied to me.  I had never heard of him, and I couldn't read his books because they were out of print.  In fact, although there were critics who praised his work, his books sold few copies before disappearing -- literally in some cases -- into the trash bin of history.

He received his greatest, albeit fleeting, publicity when his epistolary novel set in Ancient Rome, Augustus, won the National Book Award in 1973. But it didn't sell many copies either.

Fast forward to 2013:

A dramatic change occurred when the New York Review of Books (NYRB) re-issued Stoner, a novel about a quiet, unassuming, and, in many ways, forgettable professor teaching literature at the University of Missouri, which had been originally published in 1965.

Suddenly, everyone had heard of John Williams, at least those who read books.  He had become an overnight success -- almost a half-century after he had written the book -- and almost two decades after his death.

A year later, NYRB re-issued Augustus.

However, these were not the first Williams novels to be re-issued by NYRB.  The first was Butcher's Crossing, originally published in 1960, and re-issued by NYRB in 2007.  It had not attracted the readership that Stoner did six years later, but it benefited from the popularity of that novel, even to the point that Butcher's Crossing is now in development as a movie.

The Butcher's Crossing title refers to a rag-tag collection of shacks and shanties located on the Kansas prairie.  In the late 1870's, its primary commercial activity is the collection and shipment of buffalo hides to the east.  

Will Andrews, a young Bostonian imbued with the teachings of Emerson and Thoreau, drops out of Harvard College and travels west in a quest for -- well, for something that he can't quite explain -- but obviously includes a search for self -- a self that he might discover in Nature.


At the gate of the forest, the surprised man of the world is forced to leave his city estimates of great and small, wise and foolish.  The knapsack of custom falls off his back with the first step he takes into these precincts.  Here is sanctity which shames our religions, and reality which discredits our heroes.  Here we find Nature to be the circumstances which dwarfs every other circumstance, and judges like a god all men that come to her. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature


In some ways Andrews pursues a course opposite to that of Stoner; while Stoner deserted nature (the farm) for academia, Andrews deserts academia for nature.

Eventually, because he wants to take part in a buffalo hunt (something that neither Emerson nor Thoreau would have approved of), and because he had some money, Andrews agrees to bankroll a hunt led by an experienced hunter named Miller.  To assist the enterprise Miller hires Charley Hoge, a one-handed, whiskey-swilling, Bible-thumper to serve as teamster and camp cook and Schneider, an experienced skinner.  Young Andrews principal job will be to assist Schneider, even though he knows nothing about skinning animals, but is expected to learn.

I'm not going to divulge any more of the plot, because I don't want to be guilty of spoilers and because it's too damn difficult to do anyway.  But I will tell you that the passage across the arid plains of western Kansas and eastern Colorado almost ends the hunt even before the hunters arrive in the Colorado Rockies where Miller is certain a huge buffalo herd will be found in a valley that he visited years before.

The hunters find the herd but they tarry too long in the Rockies and have to spend the winter there.  Winter in the Rockies means snow -- a lot of it -- and as a result the hunters find themselves engaging in another battle of survival against the forces of nature.

Just as it is impossible to explain in a brief summary why Stoner is such a great novel, so it is with Butcher's Crossing.  It is a western novel.  No, that's not quite right.  It is a novel set in the west.  Despite the fact that the story is populated by many stock characters -- even the prostitute with the requisite heart of gold -- they are offset by a pared down, austere, but clear and vivid prose that contains no gimmicks or grammatical games.

Joanne Greenberg, who is best known for her book I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, knew Williams and admired his talent long before most of the rest of us even had a clue.  She was quoted as saying that Williams "wrote like a Shaker would ski -- without a wasted motion." Perfect; I wish I had thought of that.

Anyone looking to read a traditional western in the mainstream of the genre should look elsewhere.  This is a book that shares more in common with Herman Melville's Moby Dick than anything ever written by Louis L'Amour.  If, on the other hand, you are an admirer of Cormac McCarthy, than this book would likely appeal to you.


"What will you do now, Mr. McDonald?" Andrews asked; his voice soft.

"Do?"  McDonald straightened on the bed.  "Why, I'm going to do what Miller said I should do; I'm going to get out of this country.  I'm going back to St. Louis, maybe back to Boston, maybe even to New York. You can't deal with this country as long as you're in it; it's too big, and empty, and it lets the lies come into you.  You have to get away from it before you can handle it.  And no more dreams; I take what I can get when I can get it, and worry about nothing else."

Buffalo (bison) skulls to be ground up for fertilizer

40,000 buffalo hides awaiting shipment from Dodge City, Kansas

******

[Butcher's Crossing] is a novel that turns upside down the expectations of the genre -- and goes to war with a century of American triumphalism, a century of rejuvenation through violence, a century of senseless slaughter. -- John Plotz, The Guardian

Harsh and relentless yet muted in tone, Butcher's Crossing paved the way for Cormac McCarthy.  It was perhaps the first and best revisionist western. -- The New York Times

The finest western ever written. -- Oakley Hall, author of Warlock

'The West' never existed.  It's a dream of 'the East.' -- John Williams

THE MAN WHO RODE MIDNIGHT by Elmer Kelton

Back in 1973 Elmer Kelton published his most critically acclaimed novel, one that won both Spur and Western Heritage awards.  It is The Time It Never Rained, which one admiring critic conceded wasn't "the Great American Novel," but may very well be "the Great Texas Novel."

It was the story of Charlie Flagg, a tough-minded Texas rancher who in the 1950s was hanging on with all he had as he tried to survive the worse drought to hit that part of Texas since the Dust Bowl days of the '30s.

Wes Hendricks, the primary protagonist of The Man Who Rode Midnight is cut from the same cloth and could be viewed as the reincarnation of Charlie twenty years down the road.  In his seventies, Wes is not facing drought, though like Charlie he is forced to run sheep on his west Texas hill country ranch because they are profitable, which allows him to stay in the cattle business which isn't profitable.  It is a sacrifice that any self-respecting cattleman would regret, but a man has to do what a man has to do.


"I hated sheep at first, but they growed on me.  I decided they can't be all bad if they make you more money than cattle.  Besides, an old cow'll sometimes try to kill you.  So will a horse.  An old ewe may be dumber than dirt, but you don't find any malice in her."


But Wes does have to confront another problem, one even more relentless and intractable than prolonged drought; his foe is progress.  In his youth Wes had swung a wide loop as a cowboy, bronc buster, and rodeo rider.  He was one tough galoot.  After all, he was "the man who rode Midnight."  All he wanted now was to be left alone so that he could live out his days on his ranch.  But then progress intervened.

The little town of Big River is dying and on its last legs and its citizens are behind a proposal by developers to dam the river and create a lake that would attract tourists.  The only fly in the ointment is Wes; said lake would cover his ranch.

Pedernales River in Texas Hill Country

Wes is offered much more money than what his ranch is worth but that isn't the issue.  He doesn't want to sell for any price, not even when the local sheriff who has vested interests threatens him.


"Strange, the way life changes things on you.  That time I rode Ol' Midnight, they taken my picture.  My name was in the papers.  People went out of their way to shake my hand and talk to me.  I was a hero for a while, and people liked to brag that they knew me.  Now all that's gone; it don't mean a damned thing anymore.  I'm just an old man standin' in everybody's way."


Other characters in the story include Wes' grandson, Jim Ed, a city boy who grew up in Dallas, but comes to live with his grandfather after flunking out of college during his senior year.  He has been sent by his father to try to convince Wes to sell and to take up residence in a retirement home.  Jim Ed, nicknamed "Tater" by his grandfather, a name he detests, finds himself falling for a young woman from a neighboring ranch named Gloria Beth Dawson, nicknamed Glory B., a name she embraces.


Jim Ed shoved aside a coiled rope and a bridle to make room on the seat.  He had to move an assortment of stock medicine, wire pinchers and general working tools to make footroom on the floor.  He bumped his head on a rifle racked against the rear window.

"What's that for?" he asked.

His grandfather replied in a gravelly voice, "You never know when you may run into a son of a bitch that needs shootin'."


Like The Time It Never Rained, The Man Who Rode Midnight is not a "western novel," but a novel set in the West.  The winner of a Western Heritage Award, the themes of The Man Who Rode Midnight examine a generation gap, the conflict between old and new ways, love of land, uncompromising values, romance, and even aching despair over faded love.

Some evenings Wes takes his fiddle and moves away from the house in order not to disturb his grandson and each time plays the same haunting melody, one that his grandson does hear, and eventually recognizes.

As I look at the letters that you wrote to me
It's you that I am thinkin' of
As I read the lines that, to me, were so dear
I remember our faded love
I miss you darlin', more and more every day
As heaven would miss the stars up above
With every heartbeat, I still think of you
And remember our faded love
As I think of the past and all the pleasures we had
As I watched the mating of the dove
It was in the springtime that you said goodbye
I remember our faded love
I miss you darlin', more and more every day
As heaven would miss the stars up above
With every heartbeat, I still think of you
And remember our faded love

And remember our faded love
Written by Bob Wills, James Robert Wills, Johnnie Lee Wills. copyright Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.


The world according to Wes Hendricks:

"There's somethin' way out of balance in the world.  People over in Africa are starvin' because they can't buy food.  People here are starvin' because you can't sell it."

"But that's the way with dreams: the bad ones just haunt you, and the good ones never come true."  

"People moved away from the country in them days; they didn't move to it .... Now it's in style for people to quit the city and move to the country, only they want to bring the city with them.  Time they get through changin' it into everything they come here to run away from, there won't be nothin' left of the country .... They'll pave over the last blade of grass someday, and drown the last tree in an artificial lake so some damnfool from town can race a motorboat.  You ought to at least remember what it used to be like."

"Things ain't like they used to be ... Times, I wonder if they ever were."

"There ain't no better cure for a socialist than a little dose of capital."

"There's no limit to what a man can do once he makes up his mind he ain't allergic to sweat."

Elmer Kelton (1926-2009)

THE BAREFOOT BRIGADE by Douglas C. Jones

"One of the best Civil War novels I have ever read." -- James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom

Martin Hasford, torn between his love of his family and devotion to their welfare on the one hand and a sense of loyalty toward his state on the other, reluctantly enlists in the Confederate army.

It is his hope that his unit will remain in Arkansas and defend it from a Yankee invasion.  But as fate would have it, his regiment is sent to Virginia and, as we saw in Jones' Elkhorn Tavern, a major battle erupts back home in his backyard.  To add insult to injury, Hasford learns that his daughter has married a wounded Yankee officer. 

Meanwhile, his regiment sees action in some of the biggest, most significant, most lethal battles of the war -- Antietam, Gettysburg, the Wilderness.  They are even transferred west of the Appalachians for a period of time where they fight in the battle of Chickamauga.

Antietam: the Civil War's deadliest day

Among Hasford's closest friends in his company are the Fawley brothers -- Zack and Noah -- and a Black Welshman by the name of Liverpool Morgan.  This is their story, too.

In a brief introduction, Jones writes a perfect summation of the book:

This is a story of the common soldiers.  It is not a story of causes or politics or social systems, not of generals and grand strategy, but of simple soldiers and how they were in some ways amazingly different from modern soldiers, and in others amazingly the same.  There were a great many like these who, despite all odds, at least attempted to do whatever was asked of them.

"...this is a sturdy, above-average Civil War fiction -- strong on unromanticized detail and day-to-day grit." -- Kirkus Review

ELKHORN TAVERN (1980) by Douglas C. Jones

"The characters are unforgettable, the atmosphere wonderfully detailed, the action and suspense skillfully maintained." -- Dee Brown, author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee 

Beginning with this book, Jones launched what would become a series of novels recounting the lives of the fictional Hasford-Pay families.  The major theme that runs through them is a sense of family loyalty and solidity, especially during times of stress and social change.  And what could be more stressful or cause more social change than the Civil War, especially if a major battle were fought in your very neighborhood?

It is 1862 and Martin Hasford is away from his home and family serving in the Confederate army in Virginia and Tennessee. Left at home in the Ozark hills of northeastern Arkansas is his wife Ora who must protect their few animals and possessions, but more important, their two teen-aged children, Calpurnia and Roman.

Among her many burdens is the necessity of fending off the depredations of roving bands of Jayhawkers and bushwhackers who are roaming freely around the countryside while indiscriminately stealing for their personal gain.

If that isn't enough, the battle of Pea Ridge, also known as the battle of Elkhorn Tavern, erupts on and around the Hasford farm. Even though the family sympathizes with the Confederacy, Ora provides shelter for a young Yankee officer, Alan Eben Pay, who has been seriously wounded. Much to the dismay of Roman, it soon becomes evident that his sister is attracted to Allan and that the feeling is mutual.

It is also a coming-of-age story for young Roman, who, as the story progresses, takes on more and more of the responsibilities of the man of the house.

Modern day view looking from Pea Ridge toward a field where ferocious fighting occurred during the battle of Pea Ridge (Elkhorn Tavern)

A major portion of the battle was fought around Elkhorn Tavern, which served as a hospital during and after the battle.  If you look closely at the roof of the reconstructed building you can see the basis for the name of the tavern

"Douglas Jones brings two gigantic themes in American literature together -- the raw struggle for survival on the American frontier and the grand martial conflict of the American Civil War -- and he successfully weaves them into one seamless story." -- Jack Trammel, Civil War Book Review

SEASON OF YELLOW LEAF (1983) and GONE THE DREAMS AND DANCING (1984) by Douglas C. Jones

These novels are companion pieces that are fictional accounts of Cynthia Ann Parker's captivity by Comanches on the Texas frontier. She underwent a cruel initiation and acculturation process but was eventually accepted as a member of the tribe.  She gave birth to a son, Quanah, who grew up to become a warrior respected by his tribe and feared by his enemies.

In Jones' stories Cynthia Ann's Anglo name is changed to Morfydd Parry, which the Comanches change to Chosen, and Quanah becomes Kwahadi (Antelope).

Season of Yellow Leaf begins in 1838 with the kidnapping of ten-year old Morfydd and ends in 1854 with her "re-capture" and return to a white world that she no longer understands and does not want to live in. By the 1850's, the Comanche were facing a bleak future as they fought to oppose Western expansion by whites and encroachment on their land by re-located tribes.

The Comancheria: the land of the Comanches until about 1850

The capture of Cynthia Ann was also the inspiration for Alan LeMay's novel, The Searchers (1954), which was adapted for the screen under the same title.  Many Western aficionados rank it as the greatest western ever filmed.  It was directed by John Ford and starred John Wayne and the spectacular Monument Valley vistas.

Palo Duro (Spanish for 'hard stick') Canyon located a few miles south of modern-day Amarillo, Texas is the second largest canyon in the U.S.  It served as a winter refuge by the Comanches.  The canyon teemed with game, including buffalo, until wiped out by hide hunters.

Gone the Dreams and Dancing takes place after 1870 and is narrated by Liverpool Morgan, the Black Welshman we first met in The Barefoot Brigade (1982).  He is now serving as a civilian interpreter for the military at Fort Sill in the Indian Territory.

In 1875, Morgan first sets eyes on Kwahadi, the last war chief of his Comanche band, defeated but proud, leading his people to the Reservation. Eventually, Morgan becomes Kwahadi's friend and attempts to help the chief with the difficult task of helping his people adapt to a new way of life.

The Western Writers of America awarded Gone the Dreams and Dancing a Spur Award for Best Historical Novel.


"In these works, Jones displays the sensitivity and artistry for which he has become renowned.  His appreciation for the culture and tradition of the Comanches is apparent, and he does not diminish his subjects by romanticizing them.  His balanced treatment of whites reflects that they too are caught in processes of change that they cannot control.  Jones' characters are complex and memorable. His descriptions of western landscape reflects his artist's eye for color and form, and his careful research recreates settings that disappeared long ago.  His novels are important contributions to Western literature." -- Cheryl J. Foote, Twentieth-Century Western Writers

Cynthia Ann Parker and infant daughter soon after her "re-capture"

Quanah Parker

A CREEK CALLED WOUNDED KNEE (1978) by Douglas C. Jones

On December 29, 1890 Custer's old command, the Seventh Cavalry, attempted to disarm a band of 120 Minneconjou Sioux warriors led by Chief Big Foot that had surrendered the day before.  

When one warrior resisted surrendering his rifle and a trooper attempted to wrest it from him, either the rifle or some other weapon fired, and the soldiers began to fire indiscriminately into the group of Sioux, who then began to retrieve their stacked weapons and to fire back.  Since most of them had no weapons they began to flee in an effort to avoid annihilation.  

The Seventh had mounted four Hotchkiss cannons on a nearby knoll and the soldiers manning the guns began to fire into the Sioux encampment located some distance from where the meeting between the Seventh and Big Foot's men had taken place.  It is estimated that 230 women and children were in the camp at the time.  As they and a number of the men attempted to make their escape down a dry ravine, the guns were turned on them and the canister shells from the Hotchkiss guns rained deadly shrapnel up and down the ravine.

Soldiers and Hotchkiss guns at Wounded Knee

On that day, 153 known Sioux, including Big Foot, were killed. Over half of the dead were women and children.  Since many of the captured Sioux later died from wounds and others who were wounded but made their escape probably died as well, some estimates place the total dead as high as 300.

Twenty-five solders were killed and thirty-nine were wounded. However, because the two troops that were charged with the responsibility of disarming the Sioux were formed in an L shape in close proximity to the warriors, there is evidence that most of the Seventh's casualties were the result of friendly fire.

Body of Big Foot frozen into a grotesque shape by a winter blizzard

Monument marking mass grave in Wounded Knee cemetery

A Creek Called Wounded Knee (1978) was the third entry in what became a de facto trilogy on the Indian-white conflict on the northern plains.  The first two were The Court-Martial of George Armstrong Custer (1976) and Arrest Sitting Bull (1977).  Since the massacre at Wounded Knee occurred exactly two weeks after Sitting Bull's death, the third novel represents a natural progression.

The latter two events are closely related not only in terms of time, but also because it was the Ghost Dance movement that was spreading like a prairie grass fire among the Lakota Sioux that aroused fear among settlers, U.S. Indian Agents, and the U.S. cavalry.  Sensationalist reporting by competing newspapers not only added fuel to the fire, but also fanned the flames of hatred and distrust.  Adding further symmetry to the three novels is the fact that it was George Custer's reconstituted Seventh Cavalry regiment that was responsible for the massacre.

As he did in the first two novels, Jones utilizes both historical and fictional characters to tell the story, but within the plot he makes the story as factual as possible.  I always knew that he was a thorough researcher, but I discovered in rereading this novel that he was even more meticulous than I first imagined.  

I won't give them away, but there are two incidents in the story that just did not ring true for me.  I thought they were cases of a novelist doing what a novelist is supposed to do, in fact is obligated to do.  I assumed he had manufactured a couple of fictional events in order to spice up the story. However, in doing a little further research I discovered that both were documented events.  I also ran across other examples of a similar nature.

For some readers, this story will at first move slowly, but as a reviewer wrote in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch "[t]he ominous presence of the coming tragedy is on every page."

In the beginning, Jones sets the stage by vividly detailing the fear and distrust that pervaded Big Foot's band as well as the nervous anxiety of the relatively inexperienced raw recruits who comprised a majority of the reconstituted Seventh Calvary, a regiment that had earlier sustained a stunning defeat at the hands of the Sioux and Cheyenne on the Little Bighorn.  Fourteen years later, near a creek in South Dakota, the Seventh and the Sioux clashed again in what was initially called the battle of Wounded Knee, but today is almost universally known as the Wounded Knee Massacre.






  

ARREST SITTING BULL (1977) by Douglas C. Jones

"Jones displays sympathy for whites and Indians but never slips into a maudlin sentimentality.  The villains of his novels are not the people caught up in the event but a government that repeatedly dealt with Indian-White conflict ineptly and insensitively." 

-- Cheryl J. Foote, Twentieth-Century Western Writers

Douglas C. Jones’ first novel was THE COURT-MARTIAL OF GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUSTER (1976); a “what-if” story that asked (and answered) the question of what Custer’s fate would have been had he survived the battle of Little Bighorn.  His second novel, The Arrest of Sitting Bull (1977), was also a fictional account of a controversial chapter in the history of Indian-white relations.  This time it is the events surrounding the death of Sitting Bull on December 15, 1890. 

At the time, the Lakota Sioux chief was living on the Standing Rock Reservation on the borders between the recently created states of North and South Dakota. The authorities had become deeply concerned about the Ghost Dance movement that had spread among the Lakota.  The movement, sharing many of the characteristics of a religion, promised the eminent arrival of an Indian Messiah who would bring back the buffalo and free the Indians from their white oppressors.

The U.S. Indian Agent at the reservation, James McLaughlin, who believed that Sitting Bull was one of the moving forces behind the movement, sent a group of Indian policemen, thirty-nine in all, to Sitting Bull's cabin to arrest him. The botched effort by the policemen ended in tragedy.

Ten days later the Wounded Knee massacre occurred on the Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.  That tragedy was the subject of Jones’ third novel, A Creek Called Wounded Knee (1978). 

As in his first novel, and as he would do in subsequent novels, Jones intertwines historical and fictional characters, intermingles fact and fiction, and uses the eye of a painter (which he was), the ear of a journalist (degrees in journalism and mass communications), and the research skills of a historian to bring history alive in a way that no historian could.

THE COURT-MARTIAL OF GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUSTER (1976) by Douglas C. Jones

DOUGLAS C. JONES (1924-1998).

I find it difficult to understand why some western novelists are so fortunate to have many of their books and stories make their way to movie and TV screens, while other writers often just as talented, or maybe even more so, rarely, if ever, see their work adapted to film.

There is no doubt that timing is a factor. Writers such as Zane Grey, Ernest Haycox, and Luke Short, for example, were turning out novels at a time when western movies were extremely popular and were annually produced by the hundreds.  In the case of Grey all of his western novels were filmed, most of them more than once, though in some cases only the title of the story survived the screenplay.

On the other hand, the stories of a few other writers -- Louis L'Amour and Larry McMurty come to mind -- have made their way to the screen even at a time that fewer and fewer westerns were being filmed.  True, most of the L'Amour stories were filmed as made-for-TV movies, but they were filmed.

Then there is the late Elmer Kelton, who was a prolific writer of popular western novels, some of which were acclaimed by critics and won prestigious awards. And yet only one of them, The Good Old Boys, was ever filmed, and that as a TV movie with Tommy Lee Jones as producer and star.

And that brings us to Douglas C. Jones.  

First of all, it would be a misnomer to call him a "western novelist."  While it is true that most of his novels were set in the West, they were far from the formulaic stories produced by the likes of L'Amour, Haycox, Short, and company, or even Kelton. While Kelton did write a few novels that approached literary status, most of them would have to be classified as formulaic, which is not to say that they weren't well-written and enjoyable. Jones' novels, on the other hand, were anything but formulaic. They weren't really "western novels" as we think of the term, but were in reality historical novels that happened to be set in the West.

But like Kelton, only one of Jones' stories has been adapted to film and is likewise a TV movie. Jones' very first novel, The Court-Martial of George Armstrong Custer, was produced as a Hallmark TV movie in 1977, and is thus far the first and last Jones story to be filmed.  

He was born in 1924 in the small northwestern Arkansas town of Winslow, located about half-way between the larger towns of Fort Smith and Fayetteville. After graduating from high school in Fayetteville in 1942, he was drafted into the army and served in the Pacific Theater.

After his discharge, he attended the University of Arkansas, graduating with a degree in journalism in 1949.  He then returned to the army where he served another twenty years.  But during that time he attended the University of Wisconsin where he was awarded a master's degree in mass communications.

Having grown up in northwestern Arkansas just across the Arkansas River from the former Indian Territory, it is only natural that Jones developed a deep and abiding interest in the history of the Indian frontier.  That interest led him to deal with the conflict between Indians and whites in his first book, a work of nonfiction, as well as his first three novels which followed.  And it was a subject that he would also return to in his later work.

While still in the military, his first book, The Treaty of Medicine Lodge, was published in 1966.  His only nonfiction book, it was a re-working of his master's thesis.  That might seem a strange thesis for a degree in mass communications until you read the book's subtitle: The Story of the Great Treaty Council as Told by Eyewitnesses.  The eyewitnesses were the newspaper correspondents such as Henry Stanley who were sent to cover the proceedings.

The above marker which sets in the town of Medicine Lodge, Kansas is somewhat of an over simplification of the treaty's impact, but it is correct in stating that it did not bring immediate peace.  There were several causes, but the chief one was the fact that Congress failed to follow through with its side of the agreement.

Retiring as a Lt. Colonel in 1968, he taught journalism for six years at Wisconsin, eventually devoting full-time to his writing. Fifty-two years old when his first novel was published, he would write sixteen more, with the last being published posthumously. His historical novels range all the way from the American Revolution to the Great Depression.  There is also an eighteenth novel, set in World War II, that has as of yet not been published.  It would seem a natural fit for a career soldier who served in that conflict, but with the passing of almost two decades since his death, it doesn't seem likely that it will ever see the light of day.


THE BOOK.

According to Jones, the premise of his first novel was born as a result of a discussion with a friend about what Custer's fate might have been had he survived the Battle of the Little Bighorn.  

It was Jones' opinion that Custer would have faced court-martial charges related to his leadership and conduct during the battle.

In the alternate history that resulted (the only foray that Jones made into that genre), charges are brought against Custer and witnesses are called to testify for and against him.  The witnesses present conflicting views of the man and confusing testimony about the events surrounding the battle that in many ways reflect the confusion that still surrounds the man and his actions to this day.  It is through the testimony of the eyewitnesses that the battle is recreated.

View from "Last Stand Hill" with Little Bighorn valley in the distance marked by trees along the bank of the river.  It was in the valley that the large villages of the Lakota (Sioux) and Northern Cheyenne were hidden.

The verdict?  I'm not at liberty to say on the grounds that I would be guilty of spoiling a good story.  But I do recommend it to anyone who is interested in the intriguing possibilities that the book offers.  I should also mention that it won the Western Writers of America's spur award for Best Western Novel.


"This is a fantasy which needs no apology, for who among us has not been intrigued by the alternatives history never reveals." -- Douglas C. Jones, writing in the preface of The Court-Martial of George Armstrong Custer


Enhancing the pleasure of reading the book are the pencil and charcoal sketches of the principal characters that are included in my first edition copy. The artist is the author.  I forgot to mention that he was also a talented artist. And as a painter, he was able to describe and bring to life landscapes in a vivid fashion in his novels.  His sketches also appear in the first editions of several of his other books.

One critic wrote that Jones' abilities as a writer, journalist, historian, and painter represented "a happy amalgamation of talents."  And so they did.  Oh, I also forgot to mention that he played the upright bass in a jazz band.  I guess that was in his spare time.

******
"Countless movies and books have ... featured Custer.  Sometimes Custer is a hero; recently, more often, he's a villain, but never boring .... Both admirers and critics of Custer will find something in the book to support their points of view. -- William F.B. Vearey, The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable 


"This superb novel answers the question that everyone has asked: What would have happened to Custer had he lived?  Read it." -- Jessamyn West


The Film (Warner Bros. TV, 1977)  (NBC-TV).
DIRECTOR: Glenn Jordan; PRODUCER: Norman Rosemont; WRITERS: teleplay by John Gay based on novel by Douglas C. Jones; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jim Kilgore

CAST: Brian Keith, James Olson, Blythe Danner, Ken Howard, Stephen Elliott, Dehl Berti, James Blendick, J.D. Cannon, Nicolas Coster, William Daniels, Richard Dysart, Anthony Zerbe