GETTIN' TO THE CHURCH ON TIME

By Dr. Bruce Naylor, Norman Oklahoma

The wedding was to begin after supper, about seven thirty that night, some ten miles to the south in the auditorium of the Homestead-Darrow consolidated school. As the pianist, Doc felt it only fitting and proper that he should be early for the wedding, and he had every good intention of doing just that. His formal clothes were packed in a battered, brown Samsonite standing by the front door, and he was washing down a slice of chocolate cake with a glass of cold buttermilk when the phone rang. Had the call not come at that exact time, the day would have turned out differently. But come it did, and he picked up the receiver on the second ring.

"Doc, it's Virgil Helton. I got me some calving trouble. It’s one of my new heifers. Can you come out?"

"How long's she been in labor, Virgil?"

"Oh, three, maybe four hours, I guess. Could be longer. Saw her this morning when I fed, but missed her this afternoon. Took me an hour to find her."

Doc glanced at his watch, thought of the wedding and asked, "How come you waited so long to call?"

Well, Virgil thought she'd have the calf on her own, and then, to be honest, he was a little short on cash. Although he hated to bother, he'd be obliged if Doc could come. "Sure would hate to lose that calf."

And so it was that Doc pulled on his working boots, pushed a brown Stetson back on his head, threw the Samsonite in the back of the formerly white '54 Ford pickup parked in the yard, and headed out for the Helton place. The pickup's tires were spinning and dirt and gravel were flying as he turned north onto the highway. As the only vet in town, he was used to being called at all hours of the day and night, and he wasn't really upset. That was just the way he drove when he had some place to go and was in a hurry to get there. And Doc was usually in a hurry.

The Helton place was five north, three east and a half-mile back north again on the west side of the road, just past the Deep Creek Bridge. Virgil’s father built the one-story, four-room frame house a few years after he returned from the war to end all wars, in 1918. Not much about the house had changed since. Virgil stood on the front porch and watched the dust trail of Doc’s pickup as it approached from the south. He methodically sliced a generous portion of tobacco from a plug of Day’s Work, placed it between his cheek and gum and began to chew the cud slowly. He placed the remaining plug of tobacco in the bib of his striped overalls, carefully folded the knife and returned it to his pocket; then pulled the bill of his Farmer’s Co-Op cap lower to shield his eyes from the late afternoon sun.

As the cloud of dust drew near, Virgil leaned out over the edge of the porch, spit a hearty stream of brown juice on the dry grass, and then stepped down as Doc turned into the drive. He ambled toward the pickup while an old, arthritic blue tick hound bayed from beneath the porch and a couple of white pointers ran around the pickup barking furiously as though they thought it was expected of them.

"Shut up, dad-burn it!" he yelled at the dogs as Doc rolled his window down.

"Well, where is she Virgil? Let's get after it. We're a-burnin' daylight."

Virgil motioned for Doc to follow as he walked across the yard, unlatched a wooden gate next to the barn and held it open while Doc drove the pickup through. He closed the gate, then squeezed his generous bulk onto the seat on the passenger's side and motioned to a path in the grass. "Heifer's down in a draw by the creek," and leaned out the window to spit.

Sure enough, about a half-mile back in the pasture they found her. A bald-face, dark red heifer, she was lying in knee high grass behind a plum thicket, back a little way from the creek, in the shade of a horse apple tree. Doc pulled the pickup out of her sight and parked it on the edge of the bluff above the creek.

“Don’t slam the door. I want to see what we’re lookin’ at,” Doc advised. “And I don’t want to have to chase her down to do it.”

They eased down the slope and edged around the side of the plum thicket. As soon as she saw the men, the heifer raised her head and tried to stand, but she didn’t make it. Her rear legs just wouldn’t cooperate and she lay back in the grass and watched with a wild-eyed stare.

"She looks pretty tired, Virgil. I may have to pull the calf, but I need to see what the problem is first. Can you get my bag and that come-along out of the pickup?" Doc asked and backpedaled until he was behind the thicket and out of the heifer’s sight.

“And get that lariat rope there in the bed in case I have to snub ‘er down.”

“Come-along? You mean this fence stretcher?” Virgil called from the pickup.

“Fence stretcher…come-along, call it whatever you want to call it. Just get it.” Doc was in a hurry.

Virgil panted hard as he hurried back from his errand, set the bag and the come-along down on the ground and looked at Doc expectantly.

“Now listen. I don’t want to spook her,” Doc said softly. “If she manages to get up, I may have to rope ‘er and I don’t like to do that on foot.”

“Whatcha want me to do?” Virgil asked.

Doc thought for minute. “Tell you what. You stand over there where she can see you, but not too close. She knows you, and if you’ve got her attention, she won’t be worryin’ about anything else. I’m gonna slip up from behind where she won’t see me.”

“What’ll I do if she tries to get up again?”

“Just back off some more and talk real low. Now, if I can, I’ll get this stretcher on the calf. Then when I put on some tension and feels the pull, I think she’ll stay put.” Doc removed a tool belt from the bag, buckled it around his waist, tucked a towel under the belt, then picked up the come-along and disappeared from view behind the dense foliage of the wild plum thicket.

“You watch out, Doc!” Virgil called out. “She’s wild as a jack rabbit and liable to kick your head right off.”

“Low Virgil! Low…I said talk low, not yell to high heaven” came from the far side of the thicket.

The heifer was occupied with her own efforts and kept her eyes fixed on Virgil. Now fence stretchers were not originally designed as veterinary obstetrical tools, but they do come in pretty handy in all sorts of situations, depending on one’s needs. Doc hooked one end of the stretcher around the trunk of the horse apple tree, hung his hat on a tree limb, dropped to his knees and began to inch his way on his belly through the grass toward the south end of the heifer, dragging the stretcher behind him.

This is a real minefield, he thought to himself as he carefully navigated his way around and between piles of cow manure, some fresh and some sun-dried and fairly safe.

In just a little bit, Doc was close enough to see what he needed to see. One of the calf’s feet was visible, but that was all. He crawled closer, grasped the foot and began to pull gently but steadily. The heifer seemed to sense the pulling sensation and began to quiet down some, but continued grunting softly with each contraction. Doc formed a loop in the OB chain, slipped the loop around the protruding calf’s foot, just above the hoof and below the fetlock, hooked the other end of the OB chain to the come-along and slowly cranked the stretcher just enough to put a little tension on the foot, but not too much.

Now, if she’ll just hold still for a couple of minutes, Doc thought to himself, and began to speak soothingly to the heifer.

“Soo bossy, soo,” Doc repeated over and over again as he rolled up his sleeves and checked her out. He could tell right off that the problem wasn’t the calf’s size. It was in the wrong position to deliver. Instead of leading with its nose, the calf’s neck was bent downward, so that its jaw was touching its chest. So, Doc pushed back on the chest to create some room, and pulled head up until the nose appeared on the outside next to the chained foot. Quickly he found the other leg, and drew it into view as well. The calf wasn’t overly large, and ordinarily, that would have been all that was necessary for the heifer to deliver her calf, but she was too exhausted to push any more and help was needed. He attached a second chain to the newly found foot, and called to Virgil.

"If you want to see this, come on over here.”

Virgil straightened up, edged away from the heifer’s view and retreated behind the plum thicket, shortly appearing behind Doc.

"Is it still alive?” Half squatting, hands on his knees, Virgil anxiously rubbed his hands on the pants legs of his overalls and leaned over Doc's shoulder to get a better view. In spite of the shade from the plum bushes, beads of sweat covered his face. The red heifer just lay there, wide-eyed, her breath coming in shallow grunts.

"You don't look so good, Virgil. What happened? Swallow your chew?" Doc grinned. “Maybe you’d better sit down.”

Doc applied some more tension on the stretcher lever, and with just a couple of cranks, the calf’s head appeared. He gave the stretcher another pull, then grasped the calf’s legs and tugged on one leg then the other, as though walking the calf through the birth canal and into the world. At the same time he progressively rotated the calf so that it was lying on its left side. Shortly after that, with another crank or two on the come-along, the chest appeared, followed by the belly, rear legs and tail, in that order. The calf took a couple of shallow breaths and moved its head. Doc cleared the calf’s nose and mouth of mucus, unhooked the OB chains and he and Virgil retreated to the base of the rise, below the pickup to see what would happen.

Well, the heifer began to low for her calf. She struggled to get her rear legs under her, then managed to get up on all fours and began licking and nudging the calf. The calf responded with a little bawl itself, stood unsteadily, first tottering for a few steps then found a teat and started to suck.

"Well, I'll swan," Virgil sighed, “a little heifer."

Doc was a mess. Glancing at his watch, he saw he had only about forty-five minutes until the wedding was to begin. The single dressing room at the school would be packed by the time he arrived, and as the pianist he needed to be ready to play. He could see he was going to have to get dressed before he left Virgil's place, so he knelt down on some grass beside the creek and washed up as best he could.

When they got back to the house, Doc sent Virgil to the house for something cold to drink, then placed the Samsonite on the tailgate of the pickup. He flipped open the locks, raised the lid of the suitcase, then took off his shirt and started to change. He removed an old black evening gown from the open suitcase and pulled it over his head. The gown had ruffles around the top and bottom, and was held up by little black straps, leaving his broad, hairy shoulders bare. There was plenty of padding sewn in just the right places to add some curves, and the dress came with a pair of black ear bobs to match, which he clipped on. Next came an auburn wig with a sturdy permanent wave, followed by white gloves with the fingers cut out so he could still play the piano. Stepping to the outside rear view mirror he added some rouge and red lipstick, and then stuffed his shirt into the empty suitcase.

Virgil, who had returned a few moments earlier, stood transfixed, with a cold RC Cola in each hand and stared slack-jawed as Doc rolled his pant legs up to the knees.

“Well, that oughta do it. What do you think?” Doc asked with hand on hip and a lilt in his voice.

“What in the Sam-Hill is goin’ on here?” Virgil stuttered.

Virgil’s expression, Doc said later, made the drive to deliver the calf well worth the trip, and after he quit laughing, he explained.

“Well, it’s like this. The Roundup Club is tryin’ to raise money for some new buckin’ chutes down at the rodeo arena. They’re puttin’ on these skits when they get a chance, and if they sell enough tickets, we’ll have us some new chutes.

“Jest what kinda skit you talkin’ ‘bout?”

“A ‘Womanless Wedding’ is what they call ‘em, ‘cause everyone in the skit’s a man, and a roper or a rider, to boot. You think I look funny? You ought to see Stubby Ludwig.”

“What in damnation ‘er you supposed to be?” asked Virgil.

“Why, I’m the piano player. And probably the only cowboy piano player in the county,” Doc chuckled as he took a bottle of RC from Virgil’s outstretched hand and popped the cap on the side of the tailgate. “You oughta buy a ticket and come.”

As he opened the door of the pickup, Doc glanced at the house, at the privy between the house and the barn, and then at Virgil. “It’ll only cost you a dollar, and from the looks of things around here, I think it’d do you some good to get out once in awhile. In fact, I think you’d make a fine bridesmaid.”

“Bridesmaid — like hell! I’ll tell you one damn thing,” Virgil advised. “They’ll never get me in a rig like that!”

Doc took a big swig of RC and said, “Well, you could at least turn loose of buck now and then. Never can tell, you might have a good time.”

“Tell the truth Doc, I do think you’re kinda cute, so you be careful, now" Virgil guffawed and punctuated his compliment with a particularly heavy stream of brown juice and a wide tobacco chewer’s grin…brown saliva oozed from at the corners of his mouth, framing an array of yellowing teeth and scattered remnants of his Day’s Work plug.

Tossing his hat in the front seat and hiking the dress up to his waist, Doc crawled into the pickup. "You see this boot? One more crack like that and you know where I'll put it," he warned. "And, you'll need more than that fence stretcher to get it out."

With that he turned the key in the Ford, pulled the gearshift into first, and made those tires spin as he retraced his way toward town.

Doc came to a full stop at the four-way flashing red light in town, and flipped on the radio in the pickup to 930 on the dial. The Four Freshmen crooned "a white sport coat and a pink carnation, I'm all dressed up for the dance" as he crossed the intersection and headed south on the road to the consolidated school with just about twenty minutes to spare. He would have made it on time too, if the left rear tire hadn't blown just as he crossed the Salt Creek Bridge five and a half miles south of town.

Well, that was just about the last straw, and before getting the jack out, he gave
the flat a good hard kick with the toe of his boot. He pulled off the white gloves first, lit a Lucky Strike, stuck it in the corner of his mouth and then got to work. He'd just finished tightening the last lug nut and replacing the jack, when a dark blue Cadillac pulled onto the shoulder and stopped a ways back from the pickup. The driver, a stranger, got out, surveyed the scene and asked, "Could you use some help ma'am?"

Well, the "ma'am" didn't register. In the past hour and a half Doc had delivered a calf, changed into his formal clothes, driven nearly twenty-five miles, had a blowout, changed a flat tire, and now was about to be late for the wedding. He was in a hurry and needed to put that tire in the pickup and get back on the road. He stopped for a second, dropped the cigarette on the pavement, ground it out with the heel of his boot and looked right at the stranger.

"Nope, I think I've just about got 'er whipped."

When a fellow is in a hurry and wants to keep his dress clean, he'll do just what Doc did then, if he's stout enough. He reached down, picked up the flat tire, rim and all, and one- armed it up and over the side of the pickup, where it landed with a thud. With that he hiked his dress back up, got in the pickup, cranked up the engine and tore off in his usual way, leaving the Good Samaritan standing right there on the road beside his Caddy.

As Doc told it later, when he glanced in the rear view mirror, what he saw was that fellow standing there on the road, watching as the pickup drove away. He looked again, and saw his own reflection in the mirror; the wig, the ear bobs and smeared lipstick. He started to laugh, and for as long as he could see, neither the car nor the driver budged one bit. They just got smaller and smaller and finally disappeared.

And there you have it. That's the way it happened after the call came, or at least that's the way it was told to me. Doc was a little late for the wedding, but no one seemed to mind when he told why later on. That was the same night that Elmer Slaughthauer's balloon bosom exploded when his groomsman accidentally stuck him with a straight pin on the way down the aisle. And Cletus Polk, who had drawn the shortest of the short straws and had to be the bride, had some more bad luck when he tripped and fell down the steps in front of the altar. Well, it wasn't as much a trip as it was a push. The fall broke his collarbone and he had to go to the hospital emergency room in the wedding dress. But that's another story entirely.

The End

Note: Bruce Naylor is a physician, a fellow flautist, and author. Bruce based his story on his own recollections of a fundraiser in his hometown in Oklahoma in 1953 called the “Womanless Wedding.” I had never heard of such a thing, but a little research revealed that “Womanless Marriage” fundraisers were quite popular in the 1950s and 60s. Evidently, folks were willing to pay nicely to see the men of their neighborhoods dressed in wedding gowns and bridesmaids dresses—all assembled to sashay down the isle. This has got to be the funniest fundraiser ever.


Bruce Naylor participating in a Womanless Wedding in 1953

Womanless Weddings are still being enacted, watch below(4 min.)

Parkitecture and National Parks in the West

Old Faithful Inn sits magnificently among the towering pines and mountains of Yellowstone National Park. Tourist who stay at the Inn are treated to one of natures most magnificent shows—the eruption of Old Faithful Geyser every 90 minutes spewing a spray of subterranean water over 150 feet into the air. The Northern Pacific Railroad built Old Faithful Inn in 1903 with the thought of enticing well-heeled easterners to travel by train to the West, where they would experience the wonders of nature and the rugged outdoor life that only the West can offer.

The establishment of Yellowstone in 1877 by the United States congress was in response to a new awareness among Americans that some areas of our environment needed to be preserved for future generation. And over the last one hundred and thirty-one years, National Parks in every state of the Union have provided Americans and peoples from all over the world, a glimpse at pristine environments that have changed little since first discovered by Native Americans many centuries ago. In order to keep our parks as natural as possible, planners built structures within the parks that blended into the natural environment,which pleased the eastern travelers who could not get enough of the American West. By so doing, architects inadvertently influenced an emerging architectural philosophy that park buildings should reflect regional culture and be constructed out of materials indigenous to the area. This was the beginning of a trend that ultimately became known in the architectural world as Parkitecture.


Even though the building resembled a Swiss Chalet, the heavy use of logs and wood shingles reflected the frontier tradition and blended well in the Rocky Mountain environment.


Other national parks followed Yellowstone’s lead. At Grand Canyon National Park in 1905, Fred Harvey Company and the Santa Fe Railroad built Hopi House across from the El Tovar Hotel. Hopi House acted as a gift shop, where Native Americans sold their wares to tourists. Architects purposely designed the building to reflect the Native American Culture of the region; the design resembled the Hopi pueblo at Oraibi Arizona. The architecture set a precedent for rustic design in Southwestern park structures. Important was the use of native materials and traditional motifs.


Hopi House


El Tovar Hotel

After Glacier became a national park in 1911, the Great Northern Pacific Railroad built Glacier Park Hotel, Lake MacDonald Hotel, Many Glaciers Hotel and nine mountain chalets. The rustic architectural design also carried over into the design of interiors. At Glacier Park Hotel architects designed a pit fireplace in the center of the lobby floor to create the ambiance of an outdoor campfire. During the tourist season, a chief from the nearby Blackfoot Reservation entertained hotel guests around the indoor campfire with stories of Indian lore.


Lake McDonald Hotel


Lobby Lake McDonald Hotel



Many Glaciers


Many Glaciers







chalet


Chalet in the back country of Glacier



Chalet

In the 1920s, the American Association of Museums(AAM) believed that the increased numbers of people driving through national parks would benefit from roadside museums depicting the history and geology of the region. The AAM, in association with the Laura Spellman Rockefeller Memorial, asked Herbert Maier to design the first national park museum at Yosemite National Park. (Maier studied architecture at the University of California at Berkeley and at Heald’s College of Engineering in San Francisco.) In his plans for museums at Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone, Maier used native materials to make the buildings as non-intrusive as possible. Maier believed that park structures were “necessary evils—even the finest building is some what an intruder.” By using indigenous building materials in the right way, Maier sought to design buildings that appeared to be part of a rock outcropping or looked as though they were growing horizontally out of the ground. At Grand Canyon he maintained the Native American influence of the Southwest in his designs.


Grand Canyon Stone Building

At Yellowstone, Maier planned four museums that harmonized with the environment of each location. At the Madison Junction location, Maier designed the museum in the style of the popular 1920s bungalow, but enhanced the design with battered stonework, clipped gables, and low horizontal emphasis. The building reflected the untamed aspects of the surrounding wilderness by its scale and roughness.



Madison Junction Trailside Museum in the Yellowstone

Maier’s designs followed the precedent set by the first structure built in the Yellowstone, and continue to influence park structures into the twenty-first century.

Searching for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Robert L. Foster, who contributes articles to Western Americana Blog, has agreed to share the following story with my readers. Bob and his fourteen year old grandson, Patrick, traveled by horse back into Eastern Utah’s remote San Rafael Swell. Afterwards Patrick wrote of this experience. It is an uplifting story of one boy’s travel into the unknown, not just the wilderness of Utah, but of overcoming his own limitations.


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I know they're long gone, now just names in the history books; and no matter how long or far I search I'll never really find them. Yet I'm in their debt! Butch and Sundance, in a round about way, inspired and helped me realize my boyhood dream--to become a cowboy--to saddle and bridle my own horse, to gallop wild and free, feeling the cool desert air in my face, as my horse gallops toward the purple mountains looming ahead. Confidence flows through me, and I feel as though I can conquer the world.

However, I don't kid myself or have any fancy illusions that I'm as good a cowboy or as good a horseback rider as you folks who have been riding horses most of your lives. Most of my cowboying has been done through reading books and daydreaming about someday becoming like those hardy western men and women I read about--the ones who live on ranches or farms and ride horses as part of their daily work routine--books like The Outlaw Trail by Robert Redford; Cowboying by James Beckstead with a foreword by Wilford Brimley; or Butch Cassidy by Lee Nelson. In their pages I'm able to escape to another world where the West is fresh and young, where Indians live wild and free, chasing buffalo herds on their Indian ponies. Once in a while I run into a lone buckskin-clothed bearded mountain man riding westward, leading a couple of pack mules.

It's not that I wanted my cowboying experiences to come from books and daydreams; I wasn't given much of a choice. Due to a quirk of nature I was born with cerebral palsy and the doctors told my folks chances for my survival were slim to none. But being the wonderful people they are, Mom and Dad sacrificed to get me the therapy and other medical help I needed, to be able to walk by myself across a room without falling headlong on the floor. It's not been easy, but you learn to live with the hand you've been dealt. No big deal.

One day as I finished reading Butch Cassidy, written by a prolific Utah writer, Lee Nelson, I gasped aloud as I read the last page of the book's dust cover: "Spend a week riding horseback with Storm Testament series author Lee Nelson through wild back country frequented by Butch Cassidy, Ute Chief Wakara and Porter Rockwell over a century ago. Spend a day riding to remote Anasazi and Fremont Indian ruins and rock art inaccessible to tourists. Spend a day on the San Rafael Desert following one of the free-roaming bands of wild mustangs. Spend a day riding Robbers Roost and Horseshoe Canyon where Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch hung out at the turn of the century. Spend another day riding through the foothills of the remote and rugged Henry Mountains on the trails of the last free-roaming herd of wild buffalo. You will be assigned a horse suitable to your riding skill, or you may bring your own. You will not be expected to perform beyond your ability..."

Could it be possible? No, I thought. If I called Lee Nelson and he began asking me about myself I'd be finished. He'd never consent to let me ride along, not in my condition. Oh sure, he'd be diplomatic like most folks are to those of us who are a bit different from everyone else; but in the end the answer would still be no. But I couldn't put the thought out of my head; it kept eating away at me day after day. Finally I asked Mom what she thought. "Give Lee a call," she told me, a big smile lighting her face.

My voice was a bit shaky when I called Lee Nelson in Mapleton, Utah, where he lives. He sounded like a pleasant enough man and to my surprise his answer wasn't a flat no. He asked if I'd ever ridden a horse before. "No," I answered reluctantly. Then he asked if I had someone who could accompany me. I told Lee my Grandpa Bob was an old cowboy type from Spanish Fork, Utah, and I was sure he'd go. He'd herded cattle when he was a boy and knew a lot about horses. Lee's final answer was conditional. He said, "Patrick, if you can learn to ride a horse by springtime, I mean ride and not fall off, I'd be happy to have you along."

Then came the hard part! Spring wasn't very far off and if I wanted to realize the dream of a lifetime I'd have to find someone with horses, who'd be willing to give me riding lessons. I secretly feared no one would want to work with me because of my condition. However, my folks found James Haney, an old cowboy in the Salt Lake Valley, who had some horses, and who figured he could probably have me riding pretty good by springtime.

Though my Mom explained to Jim about my handicap I don't think he was quite prepared for the enormity of what that affliction had done to me. I was slightly bent, with an ungainly gait and walked on my toes. Mom and Dad and Grandpa accompanied me on my first visit to Jim's place. He walked over, leading an old saddle mare by the reins. I could tell old Jim was one of a breed we in the West view with affection--the kind I treat with the same respect and interest I would a great artist. The old cowboy introduced himself and asked us to call him Jim. He was bowlegged and an unlit stub of a cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth. He reached over and began to rub behind the mare's ears. She shuddered slightly as horses do, her flesh rippling back in gentle waves. This act of love seemed rather strange for a man who appeared so rough. He visited with us, the unlit cigarette bobbing up and down as he talked. Trying to put me at ease, he spun off a couple of quick cowboy yarns about his cowboying days. He was a treasure of grit and homilies and I didn't know if he was serious, testing me or just blowing wind. But it really didn't matter. He had such style and humor that I believed everything he said! He summed up everything I'd ever read, heard or imagined about cowboys--rough, colorful, sporty, humorous and valiant and a lover of fun. In his weathered old gray cowboy hat, forehead pale in comparison to the dark tan leathered face below, his eyes fastened intently on me, sizing me up to see if I was up to the ordeal awaiting me.

"So you want to be a cowboy?" Jim asked, leading a saddled old sorrel mare over to me.

"Yes sir!" I was absolutely delighted to be in a corral, near a real horse for the first time in my life.

"Here then," Jim handed me the reins. "This is Old Nellie," he said, patting the mare's neck. "Get up in the saddle and we'll get you started."

Patrick

I took the reins and led Old Nellie over toward the pole fence, surrounding the corral and positioned the horse parallel to the fence and started to climb the poles to get up high enough to get my body into the saddle.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, son?" Jim growled as he walked toward me.

"I'm trying to get on the horse, sir." I tried to keep the quiver out of my frightened voice.
Grandpa Bob started over to help me, but I saw Mom put her hand on his arm. She always wanted me to face life's challenges head on.

"Is that how a real cowboy gets on a horse?" Jim asked.

"No sir."

"How do real cowboys get on a horse?"

"They get on the left side of the horse, put their left foot in the stirrup, their left hand on the pommel, and swing their body up into the saddle."

"Well?"

"I can't do that sir," I answered, trying to hold back the tears.

"Can't? Can't? Did I hear you right? Can't? What do you mean you can't? Don't you want to go on the expedition with Lee Nelson?"

"More than anything in the world."

"Well, that's more like it. Get over here and let's get you up on Old Nellie!"

I walked the horse over to Jim. "Put your left foot up in the stirrup," he commanded. I tried to lift my left foot up into the stirrup, but my leg only came half way to reaching it. I groaned at the pain shooting through my body from such a high lift, and bit my lower lip until I could taste blood in my mouth.

"Hey, buddy, that's good," Jim grinned encouragement. "Just a little higher next time."

But damn, the pain was killing me! Even in physical therapy I'd never lifted my leg that high. I glanced over at my Mom and saw her fingers pressing into Grandpa's arm. If my Mom's love was a physical force I'd already be mounted on the tall, patient horse. Jim was standing behind me. His strong left hand encircled my thin ankle. "Let's do it boy!" Amazingly my foot was somehow in the stirrup and Jim's hand was in my back so I wouldn't fall over backwards.

"Grab the pommel, boy, you're gonna do it!"

Sweat beaded my forehead as my left hand found the pommel, and using every ounce of strength my body possessed I slowly pulled myself upward, gritting my teeth at the excruciating pain penetrating every nerve of my body. My right leg was miraculously off the ground and I was lifting it over the horse's back.

"Just a little bit more," Jim shouted, moving his hands upwards to give me a final shove. Mom shook her head and Jim backed off. "You're on your own now, cowboy. C'mon, throw your leg over. You can do it!"

My right leg went over old Nellie's back and down her right side and found the stirrup. And I'll be damned! There I was, sitting tall in the saddle, smiling down at Jim, my folks and Grandpa Bob. Dad and Grandpa whistled, shouted and cheered while Mom blew me a big kiss!

"I did it Jim. I did it!" I shouted excitedly, scarcely able to contain myself. At that moment I knew this was the most significant achievement of my lifetime.



"You surely did, boy! You most surely did!" The tough old cowboy took a red bandanna handkerchief from the back pocket of his faded Levis and blew his nose. "Something in the air," he told me. "Go ahead, cowboy," Jim said, proudly looking up at me. "Take her for a walk around the corral. Get the feel of the saddle. Hold those reins up and show 'er who's boss."

From February to late May Mom and Dad took me to Jim Haney's farm once a week for riding lessons. Jim called me Tenderfoot most of the time, but one day he told me with a sly wink, "by spring you'll be riding with the best of 'em." I really liked Jim. He treated me as he would anyone else, never letting me fall back on my handicap if the going got tough. That old cowboy reminded me of military drill instructors I'd seen on television and heard about from my Dad, who'd been in the Army.

I could tell my Mom was really nervous about me going on the expedition with Lee Nelson. One day, when I was walking my horse back to the barn, I overheard Mom and Jim talking and I caught the tail end of their conversation. "He'll be alright," Jim said.

"It's not that, Jim," Mom said, touching his arm. "It's just that..."

"Kinda hard to let go, huh?" Jim interrupted, threw his cigarette on the ground and stepped on it. "He'll be just fine. He took to this cowboying like a duck to water. He ain't fallen off or been throwed since that first time back in February."

Mom still didn't sound convinced. "You really think he'd be alright. He'll be gone a whole week out in that wild country..."

"Hell yes, he'll be just fine. Your Dad is going along. He'll watch after him. It'll be the best thing that's ever happened to Patrick."

The Expedition

Expedition leader Lee Nelson is a full time writer living on a small farm in Mapleton, Utah. He's probably the only man alive to have killed a bull buffalo from the back of a galloping horse with a bow and arrow. He's published seventeen books of western historical fiction. Seven of his popular Storm Testament series, probably the most serialized stories in modern times, have appeared in weekly installments in over a hundred publications nationwide and in Canada. Lee's quest to understand western history goes beyond books and journals. He travels the same trails as his characters, on horseback, sleeps in the same places and eats the same kinds of food. He often
spends a full year traveling and gathering information for a book.

We left Lee's farm with the horses loaded on four horse trailers, pulled by four 250 series pickup trucks and headed east to Huntington, Utah, where we turned off into the arid, remote San Rafael Swell, thousands of uninhabited square miles of rugged canyons, mesas and mountain peaks. When we arrived at the San Rafael River we found a nice spot under some tall cottonwood trees along the river and set up camp.


San Rafael Swell

We unloaded the horses, saddled them, and rode back into a deep canyon where Lee told us Butch Cassidy had hidden on occasion.


Once, after a robbery near Price, a posse was chasing him and his men. Unknown to the posse from Price, another posse from the Huntington area was also on the trail. When the two posses rode into each other they started shooting. Butch and his gang got away and the posses gave up and went home. It was a scenic ride along the river into the canyon. I got some good pictures of an old fallen down cabin that Lee thought was one built by Butch and his men.


Cabin of Butch Cassidy

I was riding a big horse called Nebraska and my Grandpa Bob was astride a large stallion called WJ. The trails were narrow, some almost straight up and others almost straight down. I could tell Grandpa Bob was nervous for fear I'd tumble out of the saddle. From Nebraska's back to the ground was a long ways! When we returned to camp for the evening Grandpa said, "you rode today as though you were born to be a cowboy."

The camp cook had supper ready, dutch ovens full of barbecued chicken, potatoes with cheese topping, rolls and blueberry cobbler for dessert. That chicken was delicious. I had six pieces! As the sun set we stoked up the campfire and sat mesmerized as Lee Nelson told us about Robert LeRoy Parker, a boy from Circleville, Utah, who later became known as Butch Cassidy. There, under a star lit Utah sky, with campfire smoke wafting over us, I felt as if we'd gone back in time a hundred years, and at any moment Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid might come galloping into camp to welcome us to the San Rafael country.


Arch of Butch Cassidy's Hide Out

The next day we loaded up the horses and traveled about an hour east, and stopped to search for wild burros. There were hundreds of fresh tracks all about. We broke into small groups, each group searching a different area. Grandpa Bob and I rode together for about two hours into some remote canyons, but couldn't find the burros. We knew they must be back in the trees watching us. The wild burro herd is a remnant of the herd the Spaniards brought to the area back in the 1600's.

We traveled on and crossed the Muddy River. After setting up camp we saddled up and followed the river for several miles into some of the most remote country in the West. We crossed the river twelve times. Lee pointed out where Fremont Indians had grown corn, squash and other things along the river bed. We climbed a very steep trail to a high wind-swept mesa where we surprised a herd of wild mustang horses grazing on top. The stallion leader gave out a high-pitched neigh, almost a scream, and the herd ran wildly east into a box canyon! We had them trapped and to get out they'd have to run right past us. We were ready with our cameras, and sat our horses in silence. Here they came, hell-bent-for-leather, kicking up dust, their manes flying, and they passed within 100 yards of us--and me with no telephoto lens. The wind was blowing pretty hard, like it does atop mesas, and my new Stetson cowboy hat blew off. Because it's difficult for me to dismount, Grandpa whipped down out of the saddle and retrieved my precious hat! Grinning, he took out his pocket knife and said he'd punch a couple of holes in it so I could use a small piece of rope as a strap to hold it on. Not a good idea, Grandpa! Nobody punches a hole in my Stetson! Lee Nelson's hat blew off and rolled along the ground at about thirty miles an hour. We all tried, but none of us could retrieve the hat. Lee was hatless the rest of the day!

We did many other things on the expedition--went swimming in the river, gathered some flint arrowheads and spearheads as well as stone scrapers and pieces of pottery. They were just scattered over the open ground as though they may have been dropped by migrating Indians. We stopped by some petroglyphic Indian writings near Rochester Rock, which is a long ways back on a very rough rocky trail along a slab-sided hillside. There were petroglyphys everywhere!



Lee told me if I bent sideways and looked cross-eyed, I would be able to see some pornographic petroglyphys. I dismounted and looked over to see if Grandpa was watching me. He was looking the other way so I snuck a quick peek. I bent down, and looked cross-eyed, and by damn there were some rather raunchy petroglyphys. But I wasn't quick enough. Grandpa caught me in the act and burst out laughing.

Lots of other things happened which made this experience one I'll remember all the days of my life. Most memorable though is when we got back to Lee's home he invited Grandpa and me into his den. He presented us both with a copy of his latest book, Porter Rockwell. He autographed mine, writing I was a magnificent cowboy! He'd ride any trail with me anywhere anytime. Coming from Lee that meant a lot. I guess I really was getting the hang of being a horseback rider!

I didn't find Butch Cassidy nor the Sundance Kid, though I could almost sense their presence in that magnificent San Rafael Swell country where they spent so much time eluding lawmen. But they helped me find myself! Nothing is too difficult if you're properly motivated. Often, when life's challenges weigh heavy on me, and I don't think I can make it any further, I remember that old cowboy who helped me learn to ride a horse. "You can do it, boy!"

Lee Nelson was such a dear friend on the expedition and I learned a lot about life from his wise philosophy--and of course it goes without saying, being with my Grandpa Bob, on a horseback ride into history, was an opportunity, most boys never have.


Note of Interest: Patrick finally got his driver’s license when he was 22 years old and was ecstatic that he could at last drive a motor vehicle! So he bought a new Dodge Ram 1500, which helped turn his mother’s hair gray with worry! He decided if he could drive a big pickup he could go to college! He decided to major in history. Patrick knew it would be extremely difficult, especially mathematics—but with the help of a patient tutor, Patrick completed four years at the University of Utah and graduated on the honor roll, with a bachelors degree in history in June, 2005. He is now enrolled to begin the fall semester, 2007, at the University of Washington to work on his Master’s degree.

Western Movie Theme Music: Envisioning the American West

Music of the American West is really a combination of styles and rhythms inherent to the place and culture of the people who occupied the West, whether Native American, European American or African American. The music represents the cultural heritage of the people who came to call the West home. This music, however, is not the music that expresses the grandeur of the western environment or the image in the American mind of a place called The West. The music that most of us western aficionados associate with Western America is the music composed to accompany the numerous TV and movie westerns of the 1950s and 1960s.

The popularity of TV westerns in the late 1950s and 1960s convinced many in the film industry of the lucrative possibilities of the western genre; film executives outdid each other in their race to produce westerns of epic proportions. By so doing, they helped define the West as an expansive landscape where western characters fought and died on the advancing western frontier. Even though I have seen more western movies than I care to admit, it is not always the movie that leaves a lasting impression, it is the accompanying musical score that brings to mind a feeling and a longing for the many wonderful attributes we have come to associate with The West.

A musical composition can relate many things to its listeners. A composer knows this and spends a lot of time incorporating the right instrument, chord, or phrase to express what he wishes to convey through his music. It really is not unlike an author who uses words to create his images; the composer uses music notation and orchestration. In the end, they both create a piece of art that tells us something about our world. Of the composers who have written musical scores to accompany western movies and TV shows, several stand out for their interpretation of the West-- Russian born Dimitri Tiomkin (1894-1979), American born Jerome Morass (1913- 1983) Alfred Newman (1901-1970, and Elmer Bernstein (1922- ). Of the four, Dimitri Tiomkin was probably the most influential in creating the western theme.

Dimitri Tiomkin was born in Kremenchuk, Russia1894. He studied piano and composition at St. Petersburg Conservatory of music. His first experience with music theatre was in St. Petersburg, where he played the piano accompaniment to Russian and French silent films. Tiomkin immigrated to New York in 1925, where he worked with different theatrical and ballet companies. His big break came in 1931 when Universal Studio hired him to score the Russian themed movie, Resurrection, his first non-musical film. Through his long tenure as a composer, he scored over 100 movies, which included Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, 1939), The Westerner, (1940), It’s a Wonderful Life, (1947), Red River, (1948), The Big Sky, (1952) and The High And The Mighty (1955). And, he wrote the scores for such classic westerns as High Noon, (1952), Gunfight at the OK Corral, (1952) and the TV series, Rawhide, (1959-1966).

High Noon is what has been called a classic western in that the story has all the elements that we have come to associate with the western genre—good v. evil, or the advance of civilization and the conflict when civilization meets up with the savage West. And, the hero who has to choose between the fair haired schoolmarm from the East, or the dark haired woman who knows her man but is too indigenous to the West to get her man. Just as popular as High Noon was in the 1950s, so to was the theme song that introduced the movie, “Do Not Forsake Me.”



“Do Not Forsake Me,” was one of the most popular movie songs of the era and the winner of an Oscar in the category of the Best Original Music. The producers of High Noon also saw the commercial possibilities of recording the song for the growing pop music market--the production company made a considerable amount of money from royalties. High Noon set the trend and other film producers soon followed. Between 1950 and 1954 only thirteen percent of American feature films used theme songs in their openings. But by the 1960s, twenty-nine percent of movies opened with theme songs—the biggest rise taking place within the western genre. “Do Not Forsake Me” was popular with the listening public for two reasons—Dimitri Tiomkin’s musical score and Ned Washington’s lyrics.

When listening to “Do Not Forsake Me,” one cannot mistake the western flavor of the song. Tiomkin opened the composition with the constant rhythm provided by a percussion instrument, the Tom Tom. After a couple of measures of the lone Tom Tom, the slow strum of guitar chords introduced the lyrics. Throughout the song the Tom Tom continued the rhythm in the background while the guitar, harpsichord, and harmonica played softly in accompaniment to the melody and the lyrics.

Ned Washington’s lyrics informed the listener of the struggle in the story of the main characters, who were forced to come to terms with the reality of the upcoming shootout in the street. Added to this winning combination of music and lyrics was the performance of “Do Not Forsake Me” by Tex Ritter. His western (Oklahoma) twang authenticated the “West” feeling of the song and added to its overall appeal.

Tiomkin, Tex Ritter and Ned Washington

High Noon 1952


Ned Washington wrote the lyrics to many of Dimitri Tiomkin’s musical scores. In 1952, Tiomkin wrote another classic western song for the theme to Gunfight at OK Corral starring Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas and Rhonda Fleming.



Again, Washington’s lyrics summarize the story line of the movie. And in the musical score Tiomkin employs the same rhythmic techniques in the background as he did in High Noon. The beginning overture to the movie, however, is more intense than High Noon. A full orchestra begins Gunfight at OK Corral with a strong forte’ crescendo that creates tension and energy but quickly fades out to a lone whistler beginning the melodic line. Accompanying the melody is the constant background rhythm that mocks horse huffs on dry clay earth.



The listener cannot help but imagine men on horses riding steadily toward town. Added to this is what Tiomkin must have imagined to be a truly western attribute to the music, short musical bridges between different sections imitating Native American rhythms associated with warriors and the preparation for conflict. In the movie, these bridges serve as a transition in time and place. Frankie Lane recorded the song.

click on icon to go to YouTube for the song.


Probably the most popular song for Frankie Lane was the theme to the TV series, Rawhide, another Dimitri Tiomkin musical successes. There is again a constant background rhythm played against Ned Washington’s lyrics, which sum up the gist of the program—the lonely cowboy tending to the herd. The listeners can almost see the cowboy’s rawhide whip snapping in the air as he yells, “move’em out.”



Tiomkin’s constant rhythm in the background of Rawhide however, is not instrumental but performed by backup singers who add the same western flavor to the song as Frankie Lane’s rendition of the lyrics.

Rawhide—1959-1966


In 1958 Jerome Moross wrote the score to another successful western, (and one of my favorites) The Big Country staring Gregory Peck and Jean Simmons.



Moross was another accomplished musician who wrote musicals, ballets and concert pieces. He was born in New York City in 1913. As a child, he studied piano and graduated from the New York School of Music at age eighteen. As a senior he held the Julliard conducting fellowship and was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1947-48. He is probably most known for his song, “Frankie and Johnny.”

He started his career in Hollywood first as an orchestrator for films in the 30s and 40s and by 1948, as a composer. Of the western films he scored, Big Country is the best known. Biographers wrote that Moross’s western musical style was shaped from his experience in the Great Plains in 1936 while traveling by bus from Chicago to California. Moross explained, “as we hit the Plains, I got so excited that I stopped off in Albuquerque and the next day I got to the edge of town and walked out onto the flat land with a marvelous feeling of being alone in the vastness with the mountains cutting off the horizon. When it came to writing the main title of the film, I wrote the string figure and the opening theme almost automatically.” The main theme to Big Country reflected Moross’s wonder at the grandeur of the West.


The opening theme to Big Country starts with full orchestra, at double forte’, stings carrying the background rhythm. The music goes from forte’ to a quieter melody line played by strings, but in the background bass instruments bring home the driving rhythm until the orchestra comes in again at full force, the bigness of the country expressed in the music can not be missed.




Elmer Bernstein was another successful composer who has many movies to his credit; most recognizable is The Magnificent Seven.



Bernstein was born in New York City in 1922. He was multitalented, as a young man, he performed as a dancer, actor and artist, winning several prizes for his paintings. He also studied piano with a teacher from Julliard School of Music. In his long career, he was nominated fourteen times for an Academy Award and in 1967 won for his score of Thoroughly Modern Millie. His other nominations were The Man with the Golden Arm, Summer and Smoke, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Return of the Seven, Hawaii, True Grit, Walk on the Wild Side, just to name a few.

Like musical scores of other westerns, Bernstein opens the score to The Magnificent Seven with full orchestra, which quickly moves into a strong rhythmic background lead by percussion and brass. Bernstein introduces a variation to the western theme with his use of Latin rhythms in the percussion and guitar, which incorporated the Spanish flavor of the American Southwest. Throughout the theme, strings and woodwinds play the melody against the constant and strong background beat.


Mignificient Seven 1960

The musical style used by Dimitri Tiomkin influenced others who followed Tiomkin with their own musical compositions written to accompany The Western. Most apparent in the different western movie themes was the constant beat in the background that imitated Native American rhythms. Also, the use of percussion instruments to give special effects like galloping horses, and incorporating such folk instruments as the guitar, the harmonica, and the whistle into the score produced a unique sound that became associated in the American mind with the music of the American West.

There is one other song that is almost synonymous with westward immigration and has been incorporated in many western scores—“Shenandoah.” The song has been around since early America, but there seems to be quite a bit of debate about the origins of the song. One popularly accepted explanation, taken from a 1931 book on sea and river chanteys by David Bone, has the songs origins in Virginia. Bone maintained that, “Oh Shenandoah” originated as a river shanty song and became popular with crews on sea faring vessels in the 1800s, basically a boatman’s song. Another more feasible explanation is that it originated with Scot-Irish settlers and the lyrics referred to their term of confinement as indentured servants. “The seven (long) years since I last saw you” was the common term of indenture servitude in early America. Over the years, the song has been known by different titles including, “Shennydore”, “The Wide Missouri”, “Across The Wide Missouri”, “The Wild Missourye”, “The World of Misery”, “Solid Fas”, “Rolling River” and “Oh Shenandoah.”



At any rate, by the 1950s and 60s, “Shenandoah” was solidly anchored in the American music culture. The Kingston Trio wrote their popular version of the song and included it in their albums and concerts. But, probably the person to reintroduce the song into American music culture was Alfred Newman, who incorporated the song into his score of the epic western, How the West Was Won. The listener cannot help but feel the arduous journey westward with such lyrics as, “Away, Bound Away, A Cross the Wide Missouri.”

In 2006, Bruce Springsteen released yet another version of Shenandoah on his album, “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.” Springsteen’s arrangement of the song, and the instrumentation, gives the song the “feel” of western migration. The song opens with the slow and soft chords of the guitar and fiddle. Gradually the music builds as the accordion and banjo take over. As the introduction continues to build, the banjo player plucks slow distinct chords that give the listener the feel for the rhythm of the river. The music begins to build as Springsteen sings the familiar lyrics. The listener cannot help but feel the energy of the song as Springsteen brings the song to climax and the music begins its fade to the soft chords at the end. What ever the origins of the song may be, Springsteen’s interpretation gives the listener the distinct feeling “Of the Way West.”



Music is timeless and how one interprets music is an individual experience. For me, whenever I hear a theme from one of the many westerns of the 1950s and 1960s, I imagine the large landscape and beautiful mountain vistas of Western America. But, the music also relates the conflicts inherent in settling the land. Just as it was all played out on the “big screen,” it was also played out in the musical score that accompanied the action.

Riverboat Travel on the Missouri and the Opening of the American West.

When President Thomas Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase in 1804, one of the goals was to find a water route across the continent to the Pacific Coast. They understood that easier access to trade in the Pacific would be good for the economic well being of the new United States of America. Lewis and Clark did not find a water route to the Pacific Coast, but they noted the importance of developing the Missouri River as a trade link to the Mountain West.




By 1850s, the Missouri River connected the American West to important trade center in the South and East. Goods and supplies traveled on paddle steamers either from the port of New Orleans up the Mississippi River to the Missouri River or from the New York City harbor up the Hudson through the Erie Canal to the Great Lakes. And then from the southern end of Lake Michigan, steamboats could navigate into the Illinois River and on to the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. Without the river link to the West, economic development would have been difficult if not impossible.



Steamboats started navigation of inland rivers as early as 1811 when the stern-wheeler New Orleans made its maiden voyage down the Ohio to the Mississippi River. The New Orleans was built in Pittsburg for $40,000. It was 116 feet long and 371 tons. The vessel was slow and somewhat cumbersome, patterned after river steamers on the waters of the eastern seaboard. Technological advances over the next couple of decades produced fast maneuverable high-pressure-steam driven paddle wheelers with low drafts that could easily haul large amounts of freight on rivers like the Missouri. Steam wheelers started up the Missouri in the late 1850s.



At first, paddle wheelers did not venture far up the Missouri, riverboat captains were afraid their boats were not suited for the shallow waters. As improvements were made to the vessels, captains maneuvered farther inland on the river until they reached the upper Missouri. At the terminus of the navigable waters of the Missouri, (in present day central Montana) Alexander Culbertson of the American Fur Company established Fort Benton 1846.





Evidently he did so at the request of the Blackfoot who believed a trading facility on the north side of the Missouri River would be advantageous to their trading enterprise. But it was not until 1859 that steamboats started to visit Fort Benton on a regular bases. In that year the Chippewa, especially designed for the shallower up stream channel, was the first to pull into the levee at Fort Benton. For the next decade and a half, Fort Benton was very important to the interior economic development of the Northern Rockies.



The possibility of lucrative trade on the upper Missouri was incentive for individuals to use their capital to construct bigger and better riverboats. This was especially true in the 1850s when the government let out contracts to carry annuities to various Indian Tribes as required by treaty.




Docked at Fort Benton

The government offered attractive contracts to different steamboat companies, the winners were usually the companies who had the most efficient boats and who had the best lobbyists in Washington. When the Chippewa arrived at Fort Benton the cargo was Native American annuities.

The development of Fort Benton as an inland port and depot for goods coincided with the discovery of gold in Montana. In 1862, miners found gold in Grasshopper Creek; the town of Bannock soon grew along the creek to accommodate a growing population of gold seekers in the Beaverhead Valley. After the initial strike, enterprising individuals found gold in streams in other parts of the valley bringing more emigrants and the growth of new towns like Virginia City and Helena, the capital of present-day of Montana. For a time, the gold rush turned Fort Benton into one of the busiest river ports in the nation. Boats arrived on a regular basis carrying passengers, equipment and supplies and returned down river carrying gold bullion, hides and wool.


Fort Benton also became important to the economic growth of Western Montana, hundreds of miles from the Missouri. From Fort Benton, wagons hauled freight overland to the various cantonments where traders, miners, and eventually settlers, bought their supplies. As early as 1850, John Owen started a trading post in the Bitterroot Valley, 400 miles from Fort Benton. At that time, most of his customers were men who still were active in the fur trade, but who also found a new line of work in trading with emigrants on the on the Oregon Trail.



Fort Owen

Before Owen built his fort, he was a sutler at Fort Leavenworth. He left the fort with a rifle regiment, who was headed to Oregon. The unit wintered at Fort Hall, where Owen resigned his sutler position. It is most likely during his stay at Fort Hall that Owen met and started associating with men who traded on the Oregon Trail. The stretch of the Oregon Trail between Fort Laramie and Fort Hall was long and dry. By the time the wagon trains made it as far as Fort Hall, in present day Idaho, their oxen and cattle were tired and worn out from a lack of good grasses on the dry Plains.The traders bought the cattle at low prices and took them north into Montana, especially into the Bitterroot Valley, where the winters were mild and where there was plenty of grass. The next summer they herded the fattened and rested cattle back to the Oregon Trail or the “Road” as the trail was known, and traded to a new season of emigrants—they typically traded one fattened cow or oxen for two or three tired animals. ( as a side note-- these men started the first cattle herds in Montana) Owen followed the retired fur traders to the Bitterroot Valley, where he saw an economic opportunity to sell trade items and supplies to the numerous mountain men and their families who resided in the valley. (Almost all of these families were interracial; mountain men tended to cohabitate with Native women, many becoming wives) As soon as the steam wheelers started pulling into the docks at Fort Benton, John Owen started making regular trips to the port to receive his supplies. He hauled the freight in wagons over the mountains to the Bitterroot Valley.



To facilitate travel from Fort Benton into the Pacific Northwest, the United States Congress, at the urging of Lieutenant John Mullen, appropriated funds for a road from Fort Benton to Columbia River in 1857. By so doing, there would finally be an easily assessable trade route from one end of the continent to the other. John Mullen led the project. Construction began in 1859; Mullen and his crew completed the project in 1860. The road not only connected Fort Benton to the Pacific Northwest, but to gold fields in Montana and Idaho.

One of the perils of Navigating on inland rivers was that paddle wheelers were vulnerable to accidents that could damage a cargo or destroy the vessel. The Missouri River was especially dangerous because of its shallow waters, swift currents, and narrow navigable channel, which often shifted making it difficult for riverboat captains to navigate; many landed their paddle-wheelers on sand bars. And, sometimes the only way to launch from a sand bar was to wait until the river was once again in high water. The Missouri was also dangerous because of dead trees and snags that could rip through the bottom of the boats. Investors who put capital into the construction of steam wheelers had to realize immediate profit before an accident ruined their economic venture.

A testimony to the dangerous navigation of the Missouri is the numerous wrecks that still litter the bottom on the river, now deep in mud and sand. For example in 2004, up out of the shallow murky waters of the Missouri, emerged the steamboat Montana, a wreck of over 120 years.



The Montana was one of three “mega” boats constructed in 1879 to operate in the upper Missouri. It was the largest boat ever to travel the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. It was 283 feet long, 100 feet larger than most paddle wheelers of the day. In June of 1879, the Montana unloaded 600 tons of cargo at the levee at Fort Benton. This was the largest cargo ever deposited at Fort Benton. For a brief period, the Montana out paced the railroads in supplying the upper Missouri and paid off investors handsomely. But, the Montana was the last gasp of riverboat travel in the upper Missouri, steamboat traffic cease to exist by 1880. After only six years of operation, the Montana hit a railroad bridge at St. Charles, Missouri. The captain beached the steamer on the southern shore, where over time, it sank into the mud.

It is ironic that a railroad bridge caused the demise of the Montana. The mishap symbolized the end of the importance of river transportation to western commerce, and the beginning of the importance of rail traffic in the national and international economy. The era of steam wheelers running the Missouri lasted only as long as there was no competition in transporting freight to the West. With the passage of the Pacific Railroad act in 1862, and the subsequent construction and completion of the transcontinental railroad, river traffic to Fort Benton began to decline. In the summer of 1867, a record 39 boats docked at the Fort. By 1874, only three made it up river. The Railroads took over where the steamboats left off, supplying goods and transporting people to the American West.

Sinking of the New Orleans 1814

Casting Oklahomans in a Negative Light

So, what do John Steinbeck, Sanora Babb and John Grisham have in common?

All three authors used Oklahoma as a backdrop for their stories of social injustice. By so doing, they helped to recast Oklahoma’s image from the West of Indians, cattle trails, cowboys, and settlers, to the lowest common denominator-- a place of homelessness and despair, where ignorant and incompetent people lived.

Most readers recognize John Steinbeck for one of his most popular books, The Grapes of Wrath , and John Grisham for his numerous books about southern lawyers. Grisham’s most recent book is The Innocent Man, a docu-fiction about a murder in Ada, Oklahoma. Few readers, however, will recognize Sanora Babb or her book, Whose Names are Unknown.

If it was not for extreme bad luck, Sanora Babb’s career as an author could have been as successful as John Steinbeck’s. In 1939, Babb was under contract with Random House for the publication of her manuscript, Whose Names are Unknown, a story about a farm family’s struggle to make a living in Oklahoma and California in the Economic Depression of the 1930s. After Babb signed her contract with Random House, she moved to New York to finish her manuscript and prepare it for publication. However, Babb’s story about the Dunne family, who left their farm and sun scorched land in western Oklahoma, is almost identical to John Steinbeck’s story of the Joads and their trek to California from the eastern Oklahoma town of Sallisaw. Before Babb could finish her manuscript, Viking Press released The Grapes of Wrath. The editor at Random House believed that having two books on the market about Depression Oklahoma was not a financially sound idea; he cancelled Sanora Babb’s publishing contract for Whose Names Are Unknown. The editor did, however, offer Babb a contract and advance on her next novel. John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.


Of the two books, Whose Names are Unknown
(finally published by the University of Oklahoma Press, 2006) is the most realistic because the author worked and lived among the people of whom she wrote.



Babb in center surrounded by migrant workers.

As a worker for the Farm Security Administration, the New Deal agency that helped farmers in the 1930s, Babb chronicled the lives of farm workers who lived in migrant camps in California-- their personal struggles compounded by a lack of food, medical care, and shelter. Much of what Babb saw in the migrant camps was familiar to her; her father was an itinerant who moved his family around Oklahoma, finally settling with her grandfather in a sod house in Eastern Colorado, where they raised broomcorn. Babb also incorporated into her story information from her mother’s letters about the dust storms in western Kansas.



Sanora Babb

Steinbeck was not from Oklahoma, and many criticize his characterization of the Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath.





Steinbeck

Steinbeck did do his research by visiting Oklahoma and California. And on one trip to the migrant camps in California, Steinbeck met Tom Collins, Sanora Babb’s manager at the Farm Security Administration. Collins borrowed Babb’s notes on the migrants and shared them with Steinbeck. Babb was never sure whether Steinbeck actually read her notes, but it is interesting to speculate.

Both authors in their respective books tell a similar story about a class of people who suffered many deprivations. In The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck painted a pretty grim picture of humanity in its most crass condition. Like the Muckrakers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Steinbeck condemned the capitalist system that he believed forced some people to suffer on the bottom rung of the economic ladder. Typical of many writers on the left in the 1930s, Steinbeck advocated Socialism and government control of the means of production as an alternative to American Capitalism.

This was also Sanora Babb’s viewpoint, although she did not introduce characters in her book equivalent to Steinbeck’s outspoken Reverend Casy, her subtle descriptions of homelessness, and an economic system that worked against the migrants carefully constructed an argument against the American economic system. It is telling that before Babb started writing her book, she joined the Communist Party. In 1936 she followed like-minded authors to the Soviet Union, where they studied many aspects of the collective communist culture.

As was often the case in economic hard times in the United States, many farmers and industrial workers found Socialism and Communism an acceptable alternative to their perception of a failed American Capitalism. But once the economy started to rebound, freedom of the market place lured most back to the Capitalist system. In Oklahoma, people enjoyed a return to economic prosperity before the rest of the nation because the state was one of the first to receive federal money to build military bases to prepare for America’s entrance into the Second World War.

The American West holds a special place in the minds and hearts of the American people. Many of us grew up watching western adventure on TV and found enjoyable reading in the adventures of mountain men, immigrant wagon trains traveling the Oregon Trail, Indian wars and outlaws. And, as a part of the West, Oklahoma has a colorful history. Indian Territory, in present day Oklahoma, was a favorite hideout for outlaws-- most notable, Belle Starr and the Henry gang. When the federal government started the allotment system and broke up Native American lands, the rest of the Territory was open to white settlement in a series of land runs. Towns sprang up across the Plains and people from all walks of life and from many ethnic backgrounds created “instant” settlements; what wonderful material for any writer to create stories that captivated the American mind. Edna Ferber took up the challenge and wrote Cimarron (1929) around characters and events that mirrored the history of early Oklahoma.



Typically the early history of the state is not the history that is most often celebrated. Instead, the Dust Bowl years and John Steinbeck’s characterization of the people as pitiful losers in the fight for a piece of the economic pie is the image presented to the world, an image wrapped up in one word, Okie.


Okies

In this year of 2007, Oklahoma is celebrating one hundred years of statehood. There are many, many different celebrations planned throughout the year. One such celebration is the National Endowment for the Humanities’ (NEH) Big Read. The Pioneer Library System in Central Oklahoma received a generous grant from NEH for the Big Read program-- the goal is to interest people in reading some of the classic books about the American character. It is up to the grant recipients to pick from a list of award winning books the selection on which their community will focus. The program sponsors at the Pioneer Library decided to build their Big Read program around John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. So once again, the Joad family, in all their splendor, is introduced to a new generation of people who have not yet had the opportunity to learn what is meant to be an Okie, and all that the term denotes.

John Steinbeck and Sanora Babb do not have a monopoly on casting the citizens of Oklahoma in a negative light. John Grisham’s An Innocent Man characterizes county officials, prosecutors, judges, leading lawyers and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation’s forensic lab employees as incompetent corrupt boobs, so corrupt that they orchestrated a guilty verdict for an innocent man, who sat on death row for over ten years before a diligent lawyer uncovered the truth.



Grisham’s writing of the story is true to his other books about southern lawyers with a less than favorable characterization of southern people.

It is interesting that casting Oklahoma as a southern state seems to bring out the more negative images. The sharecroppers who migrated from the South through the state to California in the 1930s, the ones Steinbeck and Babb made into Okies, are not seen as a part of the West. Oklahoma as part of the West is seen in Edna Ferber’s Cimarron, and an even more positive image in Lynn Riggs book, Green Grow the Lilac, (1931) which became the basis for Rogers and Hammerstein’s musical Oklahoma. (Opened on Broadway in 1943)

These two cultural icons, The Grapes of Wrath and Oklahoma, present two contrasting images of the state and its people. In some sort of schizophrenic way, Oklahomans seem to identify with both images. In reality, Oklahomans are a very diverse group of people whose ancestors immigrated into the state from all over the country. This migration of Native American, African American and European Americans culminated into an interesting rich cultural mosaic. It is too bad that writers find it necessary to work out their political views on paper with Oklahoma as a backdrop.

Combining History and Fiction to Create an Historical Novel

By
Steven Merrill Ulmen

Mankato, Minnesota, my hometown, bears the historical distinction of being the site of the largest legally sanctioned mass execution in the history of the United States. This execution was the climax of events surrounding and including what has become known as the Great Sioux Uprising, or alternatively, the Great Sioux Massacre of 1862.

In 1862, during the heart of the Civil War years, the United States government pulled soldiers from the ranks of Minnesota Infantry Divisions and pressed them to fight for the Union cause. For “Mister Lincoln’s War” the army shipped many Minnesotans, including descendents of my family, to the South, where they fought and died over the issue of slavery. Against this historical setting, the Great Sioux Uprising in all its fury occurred in August of that year.

The reasons for the uprising and massacre were numerous and complex. Briefly, the discontentment over broken treaty promises among the Dakotah Sioux tribes of the Yellow Medicine and Redwood Reservations, also called the Upper and Lower Sioux agencies, which were located on the prairie along the Minnesota River in southwestern Minnesota, caused unrest.


Dakota People

Through treaties, such as the Treaty of Traverse de Sioux and others, the Dakotah Sioux agreed to relinquish their hunting lands to white settlement and to move onto these reservations. The federal government promised them reparations for their land, and generous stipends to support them in comfort. However, when it came time to make payments and provide food and supplies, the government reneged on their end of the bargain. The Sioux ended up degenerating into drunkenness, starvation, and the scourges of the white man’s diseases. It was their natural inclination as warriors to destroy their enemy through war. In their eyes, the enemy was white settlers and homesteaders, who moved onto the hunting grounds that once belonged to the Dakotah Sioux.

The Civil War fueled this hostility. Historians tell us that the southerners and even the British supplied the Sioux tribes with guns, ammunition, and supplies on the premise that the South would fare better in the war if the Sioux created a diversion and went on the warpath deep in the heart of Union territory. A Sioux chieftain by the name of Little Crow advanced to the forefront amongst the Sioux tribes and became the acknowledged war leader. The time was ripe, the Indians were disgruntled, and like a match to tinder, the Great Sioux Uprising and Massacre occurred over the entire western and southern borders of the State of Minnesota during August of 1862. Figures show that the Sioux brutally killed, scalped, and mutilated 800 to 1000 white settlers. The Sioux took comely women and young girls as hostages-- they raped and killed many of them at the Sioux encampment. The Great Sioux Massacre and Uprising in Minnesota made Custer’s Last Stand at Little Big Horn some fourteen years later look like a Boy Scout picnic by comparison. But until now, few people appreciate this fact, because this story has not been widely publicized but rather has been downplayed.

The state of Minnesota responded. Alexander Ramsey, second governor of the state, appointed Henry Hastings Sibley, a statesman and the first governor of Minnesota, to the rank of colonel in the state militia. Further, he placed him in charge of recruiting volunteer soldiers to battle the Sioux and to orchestrate an all-out counterattack against the warring tribes. As the result, battles were fought at New Ulm, Fort Ridgely, Birch Coolie, and Wood Lake before the Sioux warriors were defeated and the hostages rescued at a place which came to be known as Camp Release. Less than 90 days after the Great Sioux Uprising occurred, the war was over.

It fell to Colonel Sibley, now promoted to Brigadier General Sibley of the Federal Union Army, to round up the perpetrators of the uprising and try them before a military commission. This process began at Camp Release and concluded at Fort Lincoln, an encampment outside of Mankato, MN where the Army held renegade Sioux held as prisoners of war. In all, the army sentenced over 300 warriors and mixed bloods to death by hanging. President Lincoln himself reduced this number to thirty-eight, and these Indians were publicly executed at the mass hanging at Mankato on December 26, 1862.




Hanging of Dakota Sioux

I obtained all of the above information from two books. The Life and Times of Henry Hastings Sibley, L.L.D., by Nathanial West, D.D., Pioneer Press Publishing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1889, and Minnesota in the Civil and Indian Wars 1861-1865 published pursuant to an act of the Minnesota Legislature in 1889. Both of these source books provide a wealth of information. The second book includes the names of enlistees in the Indian war, their rank, and in many cases, their age, their date of discharge, their date of death in battle, and the result of their injuries sustained in battle. Official correspondence of historical figures, most notably, Henry Hastings Sibley, is also included in these chronicles, and as they are all in the public domain, they are available for use in writing The Revenge of Little Crow.


Little Crow


Little Crow

From this historical background, I created the historical fiction The Revenge of Little Crow. The story evolves around a colorful old fictional character, Toby Ryker, who has inhabited my imagination for the last 30 years. I have written two other stories around this character in his later years of life. In 1862, Toby Ryker was 42 years old. I took the liberty of appointing him the chief scout for the Sixth Minnesota Regiment—he was under the historical character Colonel Crooks, and later, under the command of historical figure Colonel Sibley. I created several secondary fictional characters to interact with real-life historical characters throughout the story line. These characters include Faye Knutson, the 300-pound Swedish whore of Toby Ryker, who is a disarming piece of work in her own right. Sergeant Aloysius Bodine, so named because I like the sound of it, was a cook and friend and confidant of Ryker’s. Toby’s fictional parents, Oliver and Fawn Ryker, also play a small but integral role in the story line, as Oliver was a Hudson’s Bay fur trader and Fawn was an Ojibwe (Chippewa) Indian whom Oliver bought to be his bride. This makes Ryker a mix-blood, and is the basis of a major conflict within the story line. Half Indian and half white, he can identify with both sides of this horrible war, and is forced to struggle with his emotions throughout the story line. Add to these fictional characters a young lad of ten years named, David Stewart, whose parents and family were killed in the massacre, and who also plays a role as a protagonist adult in the Toby Ryker stories. Added to this line up is Deputy U.S. Marshal John McQuiston, whose family was killed in the uprising. McQuiston, even though he is a victim of the war, is also a real nincompoop who becomes an unsympathetic antagonist character. In the first of the series of Toby Ryker stories, he also appears as an antagonist until Ryker gets fed up with him and kills him.

Combining the historical with the fictional is the realm of the writer’s art, and to the extent that the writer succeeds in this task, the story takes on a life all of its own with dynamic characters, both prominent and secondary, who intermingle with each other and who actually tell the story of The Revenge of Little Crow. As the author, I am but the conduit – the person who commits the story to paper on behalf of these characters. Hopefully, The Revenge of Little Crow presents a balanced view of the interests of both Native Americans and the white Minnesotans in this sad chapter of Minnesota history. To the extent that it accomplishes this, I, as the author, have achieved my goal.

The Revenge of Little Crow is available both as an Ebook download and as a print-on-demand book at Lulu.com, and can be found on the main page of the website www.eagleentertainmentusa.com by click through on the book cover thumbnail.



The book is also soon be available through such online bookstores as Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.