Getting Ready for the Last Roundup

Cousin Marion Shepherd ( Shep) and I thought of ourselves as experienced trail riders after our 325 mile horseback and covered wagon trip to recreate our ancestors’ migration from Ranger in Central West Texas to Delta County in Northeast Texas. Friend Charles Horchem drove his old Studebaker wagon pulled by two white mules and kept us from starving (think well-fed).

Six years later, Shep, in particular, was itching for another adventure. And, unlike the Brazos trip, he had a horse gentle-broke to ride this time. We both were excited by a once-in-a-lifetime chance to ride with genuine cowboys doing real ranch work. Ain’t no place like Texas to get that done.

Danny Pickering, a Delta County boy who was superintendent of Guthrie ISD, offered us the chance we would not otherwise have had. He knew the famous Moorhouse brothers (Tom and Bob) and said he could arrange for us to ride along on Tom’s spring roundup. 

Tom had said we could come along if we “brought our own horses and could manage to stay aboard ‘em”. He didn’t want to mess with a couple of dudes who might spoil good ranch horses or just get in the way or get hurt.

I have always been fascinated with big ranches and the cowboys that make them hum. I have read a lot about them and heck, I even have some experiences to brag about.  My fascination probably began with old Western movies but it was honed to a sharp edge when I went to high school in the Panhandle only a half mile from one of the entrances to the famous Matador Ranch. Sam Brown, (high school buddy, novelist, cowboy poet, and lifetime cowboy), worked on the Matador with his father. 

In Rivers Ebb, my third novel, some scenes take place on that ranch. As they crossed the cattle guard and entered the Matador, Jake got that been-here-before feeling again. The full moon made the narrow winding trail look like it led to the edge of the earth.

Another good friend from high school had run the Quien Sabe Ranch farther north in the Panhandle for more than twenty years and I had the privilege of riding beside him during spring roundup and branding there once.

If you have been following my previous articles, you know I also met with legendary Watt Matthews and had dinner in the cook shack at his historic  Lambshead Ranch. 

I have also visited the XIT and the YO. None of this, however, qualified me to ride the spring roundup on the Moorhouse. 

But I had also spent five years doing competitive team roping since the Brazos trip. I knew that didn’t make me a real cowboy, but I felt ready for just about any cowboy experience. And I didn’t think any horse could have been subjected to more diverse experiences than my horse Rowdy. Given the chance, I figured I could rope-and-drag-to-the-fire with real ranch cowboys. Okay, not as good as them, but I thought I could catch a few.

I never met John and Ed Moorhouse, but I had watched brothers Tom and Bob show their ranch horses in competition a few years back at the Abilene Western Heritage Classic.  Friend Larry Mitchell, now a cowboy pastor at Rimrock Cowboy Church, drove a matched pair of horses and carried dignitaries in his restored buckboard during the rodeo’s grand entry each night of the rodeo for many years. He filled me in on the Moorhouse brothers and other ranches involved in this historic and entertaining event.

During the time of our planned trip to Guthrie, Bob Moorhouse was running the Pitchfork Ranch and his brother Tom  was running the family’s Moorhouse Ranch. Both have been featured in just about every cowboy and ranching magazine known to man and Bob was also garnering national acclaim for his photography.

Tom was known for running his roundups the way they did a hundred years ago, complete with chuck wagon. The prospect of participating in such an event was right up there with heaven for a couple of wannabe cowboys like Shep and me, both born a hundred years too late. 

Shep and I felt so experienced after the Biscuits Across the Brazos trip that planning for this one seemed like a piece of cake. So we didn’t do much planning. My horse and I had taken a few months break from roping, but I spent several days getting Rowdy legged up for the trip and felt he was ready.

Unlike the Brazos trip, we did not have to worry about two mules and four horses, sixteen days of provisions for four men and the many guests who joined us. There was no wagon to transport and drive, no detailed trail to plan, no cars or trucks to bother our stock. All we had to worry about was ourselves and two horses.

Next week: Leaving for Guthrie.

Attention blog followers: Be sure and take advantage of my three for twenty offer at www.jimainsworth.com. You can order securely there with e-check or credit card. E-mail me if you have special instructions or questions.

Also, I am on the book trail again. If your group is looking for a speaker, let me know. Have speaker kit; will travel.

George Clooney, Johnny Cash, Jimmie Rodgers, and Daddy

I did an interview Tuesday that aired on a couple of radio stations in Florida and Arkansas.

If you are interested, go to this podcast site.

You can also hear it on my website here.

Thanks to the ones who had time to write reviews for Go Down Looking. I still need more and you can post your review here .

Do things always happen for a reason?  Can we cause coincidences to happen?  Can we bring the powers of the universe into our particular lives?  Can something we did long ago cause an event (intended or unintended) today—many years later?  Instead of just wishing for a desired event or outcome, can we do something to bring it about?

Many of you know that I have two biscuits left by my father when he died more than forty years ago. They are sealed in a small malted milk jar and are now over ninety-four years old. Obviously, they had special meaning for Daddy and thus, to me.  Sunday was Fathers’ Day and that always brings back the biscuits story.

Those biscuits made a journey across Texas in 1918 in a covered wagon with Daddy and his parents and siblings. He kept them because they were made by his beloved Aunt Minnie. I carried them on a repeat journey (in a different covered wagon) in 1998.  It was symbolic, for sure. Sentimental? You bet. My way of apologizing to my father for not paying more attention to the stories he told me about what the biscuits meant to him and why he had kept them all those years.

They say that when a man dies, his library burns down. And I had let part of my daddy’s library burn down.  So I chronicled that return trip in Biscuits Across the Brazos.  The trip was more Marion Shepherd’s (my cousin) idea than mine, but we both wanted to honor our departed fathers, our grandparents, our aunts and uncles, and our heritage.

If I had know then what I know now, I would probably have put more sentiment into the little book, more of the feelings I had as I tried to bring back something that could not be seen with the physical eye. I made a stab at it in a few places, but I didn’t want to take the risk of being too sappy or causing readers to roll their eyes. After all, who cares about somebody else’s old biscuits? People have their own stories to tell.

I was wrong, of course, people do care. And not just because they have their own similar stories, but they really do care about yours. It was heartening to discover that.

 A few years after the book was released, Jan and I went to see "O'Brother Where Art Thou?"with George Clooney.  I was skeptical and not a huge fan of Clooney’s (sorry, ladies). But Clooney was brilliant in this movie. Laugh-out-loud funny, too.

Clooney plays a vainglorious fellow whose primary purpose in life is to find a ready supply of pomade for his hair. He has an inflated sense of his intelligence and is possessed of a vocabulary of words that he can’t string together in coherent sentences. Yet, he is profuse in advice for those he views as lacking in all the wonderful qualities he possesses in abundant quantities.  It’s not that the character doesn’t know anything, it’s just that most of what he knows is not true.  

As I look back on it now, I am reminded of what self-effacing Richard Farnsworth, one of my favorite actors, said about his role when he was nominated as best actor for “The Straight Story”. Richard said something like this, “It’s pretty easy to do well when you’re playing yourself.”  Now I know why Clooney was so good in his role.

 What does this have to do with coincidences? We made the trip across the Brazos in 1998. “O’ Brother” was released in 2000. When I saw the movie, I was surprised (make that shocked) by how much I enjoyed it. Yet, I could not explain exactly why.

When I bought the soundtrack, I discovered that it had a lot to do with the music. I played the CD repeatedly. I loved “Man of Constant Sorrow”, “O’ Death” and all the songs. But one song in particular almost always made the hair stand on the back of my neck and chill bumps come up on my arms. More than once, it brought unexplained tears to my eyes.

I memorized the words from hearing it so often, but there was nothing in the lyrics to explain the feelings it brought.

                  I had a friend named Ramblin’ Bob,

                  He liked to steal, gamble and rob

Not all that inspiring, and it doesn’t improve much in later verses. So I attributed my abnormal reaction to the plaintive, pure sound of the old-time instruments and the voices of the Soggy Bottom Boys.

In 2005, Jan and I went to see "Walk the Line". I boasted on the way home that I had one of (and maybe the first) Johnny Cash album, a 33 RPM vinyl record.

Eager to prove my claim when we reached home, I searched through my collection and found it. When I picked up the album, showing a young Cash in a straw farm hat, I noticed another album just beneath it—Daddy’s copy of a reproduced Jimmie Rodgers album. We had given it to Daddy for Christmas more than fifty years earlier.

 I sat in the floor and looked at the list of songs on the cover. My eyes went directly to it—“In the Jailhouse Now.” Daddy loved to hear Jimmie Rodgers, the father of country music, sing. Call me sentimental, but I like to think that those moist eyes, chill bumps and hair-standing episodes were Daddy saying he approved of our trip across Texas carrying his biscuits.

About four years after that, I came across a relatively obscure book (Provinces of Night) written by William Gay that led me to visit the author in Tennessee. There, I saw an old poster of Jimmie Rodgers. I seems that Gay uses Jimmie Rodgers tunes in his books and short stories. One is featured in “Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down”, later made into this movie. Gay’s author photo has him sitting in front of that Jimmie Rodgers poster.

Coincidences? I don’t think so. If you think so, come to my office sometime and let me show you a copy of a vanity poster in my office showing a reproduced 1997 magazine article.  The interviewer asked what I was reading. My answer: Goodbye to a River (a book about the Brazos)  and Flow, which later became the theme for my first novel.  Coincidences? Maybe. But I don’t think so.

Homecoming, Tom T. Hall and Me

I have a weak spot (okay, several) when it comes to public speaking. I have an irrational concern that someone in the audience will have heard me before or that I will repeat phrases or thoughts and thus bore them.

Of course, any speaker repeats himself, but I almost never give the same program twice. Professional speakers much more accomplished than I long ago proved the fallacy of that, but I can’t seem to shake the irrational worry. I always search for a new way of saying something I have said before.

Fortunately, something usually comes to me from some source to allow me to make a slightly different take on the subject I have been speaking about for over a decade. That subject is books (primarily fiction)—writing and reading them.

While fishing around for something to say to Sulphur Springs Rotary Club members, I read a book review in “Writer” magazine about The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. The book was written by Johnathan Gottschall, a scientist and scholar, and the review was written by editor Chuck Leddy. When a review of the same book showed up in two days later in Sunday’s Dallas Morning News, I knew that help had arrived.

I have been trying to make the case for the value of stories and how they change our lives for many years. 

However, I had only personal experience and very little scientific evidence to back up my claims that reading and telling stories are good for us in countless ways. And that reading fiction rates right up there with non-fiction. Gottschall’s book now offers scientific proof.

I once had the unenviable job of teaching accountants how to become salesmen (that’s an oversimplification that will have to do for now). What qualified me to do that? Being an introvert (yes, I am). I have lost job opportunities because the trait showed up on the Myers-Briggs personality tests used by many corporations and universities. I didn’t change that natural inclination; I just learned how to maneuver it to my advantage.

My life’s ambition was to be a cowboy or baseball player, but God knew I was not qualified for either. I was stuck as an accountant. So I sat at the feet, read the books, and listened to the recorded messages of folks I considered some of the greatest speakers and teachers. A lot of them were salesmen.

One of the most useful but most discouraging things I was told is that people forget what they hear, remember what they see, and understand what they do. 

Then another trusted source told me that people remember about ten percent of what they hear, twenty percent of what they see, and eighty percent of what they do the first time. However, repetition increases those numbers exponentially. You would think that information would have conquered my fear of repetition.

So what does that have to do with stories? As I began to apply the principles I had been taught, I learned something else. Months, even years after a presentation I had made, people would repeat one of the stories I had told. They may not have remembered the facts I provided, but they remembered the stories and the stories told them how to apply what I was trying to convey.

I never imagined then that I would be spending most of my time writing stories (fiction and non-fiction). When I wrote my first books on financial planning, most of my stories were edited out. I argued against it, but Wiley and Sons simply said, “We’re a big publisher; you’re an unknown writer. Shut up.” They were right about that unknown thing, but wrong about the stories.

When they asked me to write a third book, I talked them into leaving in a few of the stories.  That book sold five times more copies than any of the previous ones. I attribute that partially to the stories.

Writing novels, however, is different. It’s a good thing I was naïve about the bias against fiction (and reading in general), or I might never have started a novel. Although I often kept secret my own taste for novels in the early years of my career, I never imagined the bias to be so prevalent and I certainly never imagined that so many (mostly men) did not read at all.

I went on a short research trip with three university professors shortly after I wrote my first novel. One had written a book on flora and fauna of Northeast Texas. I offered to swap books (mine for his). He said he didn’t have time for fiction.

I wanted to tell him I didn’t have much time for weeds, either, but I didn’t. I purchased a copy of his book, thinking it would shame him into buying one of mine. It didn’t. He took great pains to display his disdain for novels.

One well-known author said that his parents and his wife asked him when he started on his first novel if telling lies was really going to be his life’s work.

That wasn’t my first hint, but it was one of many that told me I had unwittingly chosen a difficult path. Not only are novels the hardest sell, but non-genre novels out of rural Texas raise the selling bar to an almost impossible height.

By the time I discovered this, I was well into my third novel, and I had a small cadre of devoted readers—enough for me to finally find a small publisher or two to take me on.

But what do we tell the stick-in-the-muds about the value in fiction?  I told one of the elitists who said he did not have time for fiction that he risked being uninformed—that today’s great biographers use stories to tell about their subjects—even dialogue.  So, how can they know what people actually said so many years ago?  Most of the time, they can’t—they have to make it up.  Is that a lie?  Or is it just a clever way of telling a true story to make it more entertaining? And what about the great novels that changed the world?  I listed a few, but no sell.

I got some support from an article written about Dallas physician and medical school professor Abraham Verghese. I consider him an unbiased source because he is not an author of fiction. The doctor said, “Good fiction can achieve a higher kind of truth than non-fiction. Good stories are instructions for living . . . a great novel transports you to another planet, lets you vicariously live a full life, and when you come back it’s still Tuesday, and yet you’ve learned the lessons of a lifetime.  That’s what everyone, doctors included, could get from fiction. …. And God is in the details . . . you can’t skim and get meaning.”

I have been saying for years that stories bind us together—stories heal. I was speaking in the spiritual sense, but James Pennebaker and a team of researchers at the University of Texas determined that writing and reading stories raises the t-cell level in the bloodstream, stabilizing the immune system. 

Tom Spanbauer says that “fiction is the lie that makes the truth truer—that facts are about a series of events, fiction is about the meaning of those events”. 

The most asked question I get about my books is now and always has been, “Is any of this true?” At the book launch for Go Down Looking in early May, I quoted a line from “I wish I Was Eighteen Again” the song that George Burns sang when he was in his eighties. I always thought the second line was “Going where I’ve already been.” Turns out, the line is, “Going Where I’ve Never Been”. Both apply to Go Down Looking, but there is much more already been then never been.  

Back to scholar and scientist Gottschall and his book. He says (based on scientific experiments), “Stories are defining parts of our everyday lives”.  So what happens when the so-called facts conflict with our memory-stories? 

Gottschall answers, “Humans have a knack for weeding out inconsistencies and putting in facts that enhance our self-made narratives. A life story is a carefully shaped narrative that is replete with strategic forgetting and skillfully spun meanings.”  You have to love the term strategic forgetting.

Some of my readers who know my history and know the history of Northeast Texas barely got  past the first scene in Go Down Looking before contacting me about something they remember differently. I enjoy getting these questions and challenges. Usually, a little more reading will answer their questions. If not, I always enjoy explaining why I told the story the way I did.

Gottschall goes on, “Fiction allows our brains to practice reacting to all kinds of challenges that are, and always were, most crucial to our success as a species . . . Stories make societies work better.”

Remember what we talked about earlier: We forget what we hear, remember what we see, and understand what we do. Reading fiction allows us to hear, see and do. I have many friends, mostly men, who have not read a book since high school. They say they can’t stay awake or, “I’ll wait till the movie comes out.”

That’s because they only read words. They haven’t taught themselves to hear, see and do right along with the characters in books. When they learn to do this, they read faster and begin to understand the meaning of stories and begin to enjoy one of life’s greatest pleasures. 

Speaking of that, Willard Spiegelman in his Seven Pleasures (Essays on Ordinary Happiness) book, lists reading and writing as two of the seven. Listening, dancing, looking, walking, swimming, are the other five. Okay, I don’t know why he left out the one you would have chosen.  I think the answer lies in the word ordinary.  

Writing novels has given me a renewed appreciation for songwriters. They often say as much in one page as I do in three hundred.So I thought it might be fun to try this hear, see and do thing with a few words from famous songwriter, Tom T. Hall. Who doesn’t remember the year that Clayton Delaney died? 

In another song, “Homecoming”, Tom tells the story that covers several decades in one page, about six hundred words. And he does it with only one character speaking.

Humor me. See if you can see what Tom is telling us in the first verse, just fifty-two words, four lines.

Guess I should’ve written Dad, to let you know that I was coming home

I’ve been gone so many years, I didn’t realize you had a phone

Saw your cattle coming in, boy, they’re looking mighty fat and slick

Saw Fred at the service station, told me his wife is awful sick

What do you see in your mind’s eye with each line?

A son returns after being away for many years with no contact.

We know the approximate era because the dad did not have a phone when the son left

Daddy’s a farmer/rancher—but the bigger issue is the son making small talk to avoid speaking about the invisible barrier between them—his prolonged absence and his guilt.

Fred is probably a brother who has a sick wife. The brother has stayed behind with his father.

Do you have a vision of the father and son meeting for the first time in years? Where are they? What are they wearing? I see the father in overalls and one of those Hank Williams hats, the son in a loud western shirt with the top two or three snaps undone. The father is on the porch and the son is at the porch steps of a little farm house with a fig tree in the yard and a swing on the porch, a vine grows up a trellis.  

Do you see the cattle? What kind are they? See the old service station?

Now skip to the fourth verse.

I’m sorry I couldn’t be here with you all when Momma passed away

I was on the road, and when they came and told me, it was just too late.

I drove by the grave to see her; boy, that sure is a pretty stone

I’m glad that Fred and Jan are here, it’s better than you being here alone.

Can you see the gravestone, the little country graveyard? The anguish on the son’s face, the disappointment and grief on the father’s?  And now we know that Fred is a brother.

Now the final verse (we’re skipping several good ones).

Well, Dad, I gotta go; we got a dance to work in Cartersville tonight

Let me take your number down, and I promise you I’ll write

Now you be good and don’t be chasin’ all those pretty women that you know

And, by the way, if you see Barbara Walker, tell her that I said hello.

We’re back to the guilty small talk, the awkward departure in order to return to a life the father does not approve of. And, of course, the old flame the son left behind. See the sweetheart’s face? See the forced smile on the son’s face disappear and a deep sadness fill his eyes as he mentions his old heartthrob?

Chuck Leddy, contributing editor to “Writer” magazine concludes in his review of Gottschall’s book, “Little wonder then that we seek to share our stories with others: Our brains are hard-wired to construct and absorb stories. Our love of story is what makes us human.”  

Gottschall seals the deal with these revealing words.  “Until the day we die, we are living the story of our lives. And, like a novel in process, our life stories are always changing and evolving, being edited, rewritten, and embellished by an unreliable narrator. We are, in large part, our personal stories.”  

Now, go read. Oops. I forgot the ones who need to read this don’t read. I am preaching to the choir.  Marcel Proust called the moments of unity between writer and reader “that fruitful miracle of a communication in the midst of solitude.” To my readers, I say thanks for that fruitful miracle. And thanks for your kind comments.

I am trying to hold up my end of this publisher/author agreement. Go Down Looking is now officially released on Amazon and I need reviews. If you read it and liked it, please go here and write a few words. You can also find it (and review it) at B&N and most other online bookstores. If you don’t own it yet, check out the special deal I am offering here.

At the risk of begging too much, I also need reviews for the e-book version of Rivers Flow. Go here. If you have already written one for the print book, feel free to repeat the same words. Remember that I am offering special deals at my website here. Many thanks.

Reflection--The Art of Looking Back

Memorial Day at Mt. Zion, 2012. 

Six years ago, I spoke here for this annual event. The subject was “There’s Something About Old Country Graveyards”. I spoke about why we return to the burial grounds of our ancestors and friends. I read a poem called “Do Not Stand."  Mary Frye wrote the poem on a paper grocery sack as a eulogy to her mother. 

Frye said on behalf of her mother, “Do not stand by my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep. I am the thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glint on snow” . . . and so forth, I won’t read the whole poem again.

I went on to talk about why we do come to stand by the graves of the ones who left before us. That the cemetery is not the only place where we can reconnect to our loved ones, but is the always place, at least the physical place.

When we visit their graves, we hear their whispers about the mistakes they made and how we can avoid them. In the sun, we feel the warm touch of their embrace. In the rain, we feel cleansed and calmed. In the snow, we see the brightness of their smiles. In the sounds of nature, the chirp of a cricket, the buzz of a locust, the song of a bird, we hear the healing stories of our time together. In the birds that fly around old country graveyards, we see our loved ones’ freedom from pain, and ourselves flying away.

Two years later, I spoke about Going Home Again. I read an unpublished story of mine about a man in the latter stage of life visiting his long-abandoned home place. I tried to make the case that churches and cemeteries are the threads that gently pull us back home. Again, I turned to an eloquent poet, T. S. Elliott, who said, “The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started—and to know that place for the first time.”

Today, I want to talk about Reflection, the Art of Looking back. We are often told to never look back, to always keep our eyes on the road ahead, the future. But writing novels has given me a new perspective.  I think looking back is good. A frequent backward glance (no, make that a calm deliberate, purposeful perusal) helps us to see the road ahead clearer.

Another nice thing about reflection—the oldest of us enjoy special advantages when it comes to looking back simply because we have more to think about, more to look back on. We have been seasoned by life—hopefully to a just-right result. Seasoned by pain and grief, triumph and tragedy, the potholes we did not see coming, the rivers we swam, the mountains we climbed, whether we wanted to or not. 

And yes, we have been weathered—buffeted about by winds, rain and sun, and the storms of life in general. And we have the faces to prove it. Reflection allows us to consider how the events of our past formed us, what we can learn from events that just seem to have happened to us, the problems we brought upon ourselves, and how we handled them. How we overcame adversity or allowed it to overcome us, and how that adversity usually made us stronger.

I used to avoid prolonged reflection, shooing it away when it came unbidden because it sometimes brought guilt, sadness, disappointment, even shame. As a novelist, I learned to embrace it because, well, I have to in order to write.

I count myself  fortunate because I spend days, weeks, months and years reflecting, pondering what could have been done better or differently and how that might have affected many lives.

Such reflection led me to tell Jan what I wanted on my own gravestone.

      Jim Ainsworth –Coulda Done More, Coulda Done it Better, Wish I had.

But reflection shouldn’t be a form of punishment. Sure, we should learn from our mistakes. But looking back should be about forgiveness, not just of others, but of ourselves. None of us is perfect.

So what does that have to do with this day of remembrance and memorial at Mt. Zion? This annual event is a designated time to look back. Not just at our own lives but the lives of those buried in this cemetery. Not a time to riddle ourselves with guilt, but to look back at our mistakes and the mistakes made by those who left this earthly plain before us.

It’s even more important, I think, to look back at what the ones who went before us accomplished, often in the face of great adversity. Many set the bar very high. Won’t their lives be more meaningful if we learn from them? Won’t we be better?

But many of us get so caught up in the details of flowers, food, weather and dress that we don’t pause to reflect and remember. We should take that pause. Let this day be a reminder about a practice that we should engage in throughout the year.  

Part 2 of the Magnificent Seven Minus Six

Last week, we left Joe, the husband of the woman in the green rabbit hat stranded fifty yards down a mountainside in the Gros Ventre Wilderness. Buck, our head outfitter, tied a rope around a big tree limb and plucked a second from one of the packhorses. He put the other rope around his neck and under one arm.

He yelled for me to keep the horses calm as he semi- rappelled down to his customer (after stopping to retrieve Joe’s boot). Buck looped the extra rope under Joe’s arms, and then climbed back up. Buck’s stock went up as I watched his calm and skillful descent and ascent.  

He led the big roan I was riding forward a few feet and dallied the rope around the horn. I pulled the rope about chest high against a tree and he gently coaxed the roan forward. Joe was unsteady as the horse pulled him to his feet.

Joe tried to keep his feet, but fell several times on the way up. He suffered more from scratches when the rope dragged him along the ground than he had from the fall. I watched the rope steadily rub a trail through the tree trunk, hoping it would not fray and break.

Bruised-but-not-broken, Joe reluctantly remounted less than an hour after his fall (with both boots on). He said he had panicked as he stared down the deep slope, pulled a rein hard enough to cause his horse to fall and dump him down the mountain.

At the main campsite, Buck kept his promise and assigned me to a private tent several yards up the mountain and close to the cook tent. I liked the location, but the tent sagged with the weight of accumulated water.

When his two brothers and Patty, the cook, did not arrive with food and the wood cook stove, he sent me back down a different trail to see if they were in trouble. Alone in that pristine wilderness, I was in cowboy and mountain heaven.

I found the stragglers and discovered that they were behind schedule because the owner of the packhorses and mules (an experienced rider) had been thrown. They had to take him back to the trailhead to be treated for a sprained ankle.

It was well past dark when we rode into camp, but Patty had steak and potatoes ready in less than two hours. We ate together in the cook tent. The stove warmth felt good.

I learned that Phil was called Buck because he had broken his back and both knees riding broncs (I had a great deal more respect for his rapelling down a mountain when I heard this), his brother Randy was called Rangey, and brother George was called Stanley (no reason was given). They had children with names like Snow Ann, Wolf and Whiz.

And they took turns drinking. One brother stayed sober each night in order to handle any emergency that might arise while the others got roaring drunk.

The next morning, Buck awakened me well before daylight to help wrangle the horses. My bedroll was cozy and the water on top of my tent had turned to ice. I started to rethink my desire to be treated as a member of the crew.

They tied bells on the horses each night and turned them loose to forage for themselves because they could not pack enough feed up the mountain. We managed to find them easily by listening for the bells (every morning except one).  

At sunrise, Buck pointed toward a herd of elks in the distance, said he would be back during season with hunters. I asked about hunting for bears and he said he could get away with shooting me easier than he could a grizzly.

Unshaved and un-bathed after four days of riding and camping, I was beginning to feel like Jeremiah Johnson. I was sleeping like a baby in the wee hours when two mounted riders leading two packhorses complete with banging pans rode by my tent and stopped at the cook tent.

I rolled out of my bedroll in my longhandles, pulled back the tent flap, and watched. A dying campfire by the cook tent revealed Buck and Stanley asleep on bare ground with only a light blanket for cover and their hats for pillows in freezing temps. It had been their turn to drink the night before.

I had come to like and enjoy the brothers, but one could never accuse them of proper cowboy etiquette or attire like most ranch cowboys adhere to in Texas. Their hats were bent out of shape, their boots worn over on the heels, their shirts and jeans torn. By starlight, the two new arrivals looked like something out of a Gary Cooper western when compared to the brothers.  

Lights came on in the cook tent and Patty shouted loud enough to wake us all that “The Old Hag” had finally arrived. Much laughter as Patty hugged one of the riders and Rangey shook the hand of the other.

When we gathered for breakfast, we all knew Julie Hagen (the Old Hag) and her companion Jimmy before we took our first bite. Both made the rounds and introduced themselves. Julie was a ranch manager who had worked on ranches in Arizona, Colorado and Montana, and the Little Jennie in Wyoming.  

Jimmy was an outfitter who led safaris in Wyoming, Montana, Alaska and Africa. Julie and Jimmy had been friends since high school and possessed that kind of free spirit that most of us long for but rarely achieve.

Jimmy and I were close to the same size. As we rode together the next few days, I tried to buy his chaps, his hunting knife, his pistol, even his boots. He wouldn’t sell a thing. They all looked like something the first People might have used before Columbus discovered America. I had never seen any like them, before or since.

Jimmy and Buck told me that Julie was also a painter and poet, that her brother was an Olympic skier, her father a biologist, her mother a professional flutist. Not your usual resume for a ranch manager or horsepacker. I also learned that she had met famous photographer Jay Dusard in college and that they had remained close friends.

One of his photos of her when she had been ranch manager for Wagstaff Land and Cattle Co. had become famous and had been included in his book, The North American Cowboy: A Portrait.  She was definitely more than an old hag as can be seen from this.

The trip down the mountain on the final day was not as pleasant as the one going up. It was warm and dusty; the horses knew we were near the end and fought their bits, finally taking off with the inexperienced riders, drowning us in a sea of dust.

We had started to sweat, so the dust formed a dark cover on our faces. I held the big roan back and stayed with the brothers.  I glanced at Jimmy and Julie as Buck and Rangey calmly watched the string of horses run full speed down the mountain, their riders (their responsibility) hanging on for dear life.  Jimmy and Julie seemed neither surprised nor perturbed. They had apparently witnessed similar spectacles before.

Rangey pointed at the riders. “We did these folks a lot of good in a short time. Not a single one fell off. Last week at this time, we woulda lost at least three or four.”

Buck asked me if I still wanted my money back as he reached for a billfold I knew was empty (“I never carry money in the mountains. Ain’t no place to spend it.”) I laughed and said no. It had not been the Magnificent Seven, but it still ranked as a great experience.

As we said goodbye at the trailhead, The Old Hag told me where I could buy some of her greeting cards in Jackson.

When I walked into the lobby of the little cabin court back in Jackson, I saw a reflection of a stranger in a full-length mirror and briefly wondered who he was. The bearded, dust-covered man’s face was about three shades darker than my own—he wore spurs and saddlebags were slung casually over his shoulder. He appeared to have stepped out of a time capsule from a century earlier.  Then I knew that, for a second or two, he was the man a certain boy had dreamed of becoming long, long ago.

I dropped by the store Julie told me about and bought some of her greeting cards and the framed photograph I later learned had appeared not only in Dusard’s book but in American Cowboy, Cowboys and Indians, and many other magazines.  I have seen it in publications many times since. The store promised to get it signed before shipping to me. Julie signed it, “to Jim, till our trails cross again”. It hangs in my office today.

Book Special. One free hardback copy of Rivers Ebb or Rivers Crossing with purchase any other book.  You can pay securely on my website through PayPal (you do not have to have a PayPal account to use your credit card).  Also, I am discounting e-book download cards to $9 including postage and tax.

The Magnificent Seven Minus Six

A horse packing trip in the mountains had been on my bucket list for a long time when I read an article about an outfitter. Three months later, I was driving down the Chief Joseph Scenic Trail, alongside the Yellowstone River, then through the park. 

In Cody, Wyoming, I saw a sign that made me stop for a meal at the Proud Cut Saloon. The name made me chuckle (look it up if you don’t know the term). A sign over the bar read, “Some people are alive only because it’s against the law to kill ‘em.”  My kind of place. A place where folks have a sense of humor.

Spent the night in a small cabin in Jackson.  A driver in a small van picked me up the next morning. I was the first passenger, but expected at least six more to join me. I had been promised a full excursion into high-elevations in the Gros Ventre wilderness area with a group of experienced horsemen from New Mexico and Colorado. Two of my soon to be companions were hunting guides.

I had been riding all my life, but had little experience riding in the mountains. I expected to learn from a group of rough and tough hunters and horsemen. The brochure described treacherous switchbacks, perilous canyons, rock slides, mountain vistas. But it was the picture on the brochure of six grizzled horseback veterans that brought to mind “The Magnificent Seven” (I saw myself as the seventh) that really got my attention. It was described as “A Real Man’s Ride”.

I frowned a little when the van stopped to pick up a couple from Minnesota.  The small green rabbit felt hat worn by the wife with a stampede string tucked tightly under her chin and the way the husband stumbled along in boots two sizes too large gave me an uh-oh feeling. Maybe they were going with another group.

By the time we picked up the remaining passengers, I had a real sense of trepidation. When we unloaded at the trailhead, I approached head outfitter Phil, nodded my head toward my riding companions, and asked what happened to the tough guys he had told me about. I was disappointed and angry enough to ask for my money back.

Phil stepped off a big red roan, put his hand on my shoulder and guided me away from the others. He explained in whispers that the six other gentlemen scheduled to ride with me had cancelled at the last minute and these riders were on a waiting list. Said I had already left home before he could notify me.

That was possible, because I had left a few days early to conduct some business. But I still wanted a refund.

Phil told me that he had no choice but to take these folks to the same places he had planned to take the magnificent seven. He said I could have my pick of the horses; could ride alone if I wanted to; would be treated as a member of the crew, not a guest; guaranteed me the experience of a lifetime. If I did not have it, he promised a refund at the end of the trip.

I didn’t believe him. “You’re really gonna take these folks on the same ride you promised me? The ride for experienced horsemen only?”

His face held a pained expression. “Got no choice. Plans already been made. Camps already set up. That’s why I may need your help.”

I felt my leg being pulled. Phil was one of those people who had an obvious knack for fooling you and making you smile at his effort. I looked up to the mountains for a few minutes, walked over to the van, got my saddlebags, tied them behind the red roan’s saddle, and mounted. Phil put a hand on the roan’s hip. “That’s my horse.”

I nodded. “You said I could have my pick. Did you mean what you said, or not?”

He removed his hat, ran his finger around the sweatband, and grinned. “My friends call me Buck. I’m short a hand since both of my brothers are staying behind to pack the food, cook stove and other supplies. You mind bringing up the rear in case one of these dudes falls off?”

I called after him as he ambled away. “Mind if I adjust the stirrups?”

He never turned. “You a cowboy. Do what you think’s right.”

I thought Buck was pulling my leg about dudes falling off, but we had traveled less than a quarter of the way up the mountain to our first campsite before one did fall. Six horses jumped across a spruce that had fallen across a stream without losing a passenger, but the seventh drug a hoof and stirred up a hornet’s nest. Hornet stings on a horse’s belly will cause him to buck.

The man in front of me had talked non-stop to his horse since leaving the trailhead. “Okay, can we leave now?” evolved into things like, “Would you mind catching up to the others?”

His legs, feet and arms were useless appendages and the horn was his only means of steering. He had no idea what to do with the reins. He seemed to believe that he could make friends and negotiate with his mount in human speak.

I shouted a warning when I saw the hornets, but he could not hear me over his ceaseless prattle. Soft mud in the stream broke his fall. I helped him up and he bravely remounted, whispering  to his horse,  “I know you didn’t mean to do that.”

An hour later, the dude and I were becoming friends and I was enjoying some of the most beautiful, pristine scenery I had ever seen. The temperature had dropped twenty degrees and I could see snow in the Grand Tetons in the distance (this was August). I could also hear, see and feel the mist off a waterfall.

The narrow trail sloped off steeply on our right so that we were eye-level with the tops of gigantic whitebark pines. The serenity and quiet had really enveloped me when I heard a squeal from the woman in the green hat and saw her husband tumble down the deep slope. He tumbled for what seemed like a long time.

The base of a lodgepole pine about fifty yards down finally stopped his descent. I saw a solo boot against a tree trunk about halfway down.

Part 2 next week.

Remember my two-for-one book offer (see last week’s blog or my website. Order securely online or e-mail me to take advantage of this offer while the books last. Also, I now have e-book download cards for $10 (Go Down Looking).

Buyers, Readers, Fans and Evangelists

My sincere gratitude to the folks who filled the large room at the Alumni Center to capacity and waited patiently in line to buy and get books autographed.I tried to acknowledge all the folks who came from long distances, showed up with gifts or special memories, but I know I missed some.  

Larry and Elaine Whitlock brought me a framed photo of the Delta County Champion Indians in the charter year for Little League. Geral Dewitt of the Giants was also there.

Dr. Stephen Turner came from Plainview with his latest book On the Western Trail. And poet Wanda Myers Glawson, ninety, came from San Antonio. She’s one of those people I knew, but didn’t know that I did before Rivers Flow.

My attempts to chronicle the past through fiction brought about more connections than I can list here. Wife Jan said I should write about them all.  When I saw the faces of people that I would never have known if not for the books, saw old friends reuniting for the first time in decades, I discovered an answer to a question I have been asked many times.

Some of my friends seem incredulous about my now decade long venture into writing novels (most are guys who might buy a book, but never crack the cover). Their questions range from a simple “Why?” to , “How many novels are you going to write before you give up? Have you had a best-seller yet? Why don’t you write a thriller so it at least has a chance of selling big?”

I now have an answer, but they still may not understand.  Someone said that writers write to explain the world we live in to ourselves. But during this signing event, I learned that I also write because of the people in that room, people who are sending in orders, all the people who read my books, people who read this blog, and people who reconnect because of the books.

And writing has given me a whole new appreciation for songwriters. One of my favorites is Tom T. Hall. A particular line in one song often pops into my head when I hear those comments and questions.

You remember how the young boy follows Clayton Delaney around because he is “the best guitar-picker in our town?” The young boy asks Clayton why he doesn’t “pick up his guitar and head on down to Tennessee”.  Clayton’s reply, “Son, you better put that old guitar away. There ain’t no money in it; it’ll lead you to an early grave.”

That part about the money could certainly be said about writing. And writing non-genre novels could leave to an early grave, I suppose.  Publishing and marketing those babies is tough.

But writing allows me to be more introspective and reflective. I hope it helps readers to do the same as they identify with my stories.

The few early readers of Go Down Looking want to know if any of the stuff I wrote about happened. Again, I turn to a song. Remember when George Burns recorded “I Wish I was Eighteen Again” when he was in his final years? 

I always thought one of the lines was “Going where I’ve already been.” Turns out it was “Going where I’ve never been.” Well, both lines apply to this book and me. Writing allows me to  be eighteen again, going I’ve already been and where I’ve never been.

Ken Ryan, who came to the signing from Lufkin, has already read the book and sent me his comments. We were both astonished to learn that he was an eyewitness to at least one critical scene in the book. I can’t share all that he said without giving away too much, but suffice it to say that the connections are uncanny. And he is a guy I never met before the signing. We connected through this blog.

It is said that writers have buyers, readers, fans, and evangelists. I appreciate every single person who fits into any of those categories. I know a few folks buy the books, never intending to open them. I still appreciate them because they want to support my efforts.

I also recognize the tendency to think that someone we know can’t be a real writer. That’s even truer if you are related to the writer. Some readers read to see if they recognize the characters.

I know there are readers who are indifferent or just don’t care for my books. I even appreciate them. At least they gave me a chance.

Fans are the good folks who read them and take the time to let me know they liked them and why. I need more of them. They encourage me to keep going.

Then there are the evangelists. They hold a special place in my heart because they like the books enough to make their reviews public and to spread the word. They are the biggest sellers of my books. I need many more of them. They may keep me away from that early grave.

About two years ago, I sold out of Biscuits and Rivers Flow books and could not get more.  A publisher went out of business; a set of plates damaged by storm. To get those books back in print, I made a deal with a new publisher.  

Long story short, that deal replaced me as the only source in the universe for Rivers Crossing and Rivers Ebb. All my books are now digital. That means orders from bookstores and Amazon are now filled elsewhere, leaving me with an overstock of quality hardbacks.

I gave books to wounded vets, VA hospitals, etc… but who better to have the surplus than the people who have been fans and evangelists.   

With that in mind, I am offering a two for one deal. With the purchase of any of my books, I will send a free copy of either Rivers Ebb or Rivers Crossing. I know that many have purchased these  books already and I thank you for that. If so, please consider giving copies to friends or family (with your recommendation).

If you haven’t read them, I hope you will. There are no catches or tricks to this offer. It’s two for one, four for two, any quantity as long as they last. We are updating the website for this offer now, but just e-mail or call and we will work out details.

If you purchased your copy of Go Down Looking before this offer, just let me know and I will see that you get your free copies.

The publisher wanted to know if I wanted a catchphrase on promotional items for Go Down Looking.  Find the Flow, Hear the Music, sort of tumbled out in a split second. Those six words underscore an underlying theme in all my books. Did I know that when I started writing? No. It began to emerge only after three books. 

A few days ago, one of the connections I made through writing sent me a poem. Here are a few lines from Slow Dance.

You'd better slow down
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.

Ever told your child, we'll do it tomorrow?

And in your haste, not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch, Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time to call and say,'Hi'

You'd better slow down, don't dance so fast.
Time is short--the music won't last . . .
When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
 Life is not a race.
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.