A Photographic Essay of the Tetons

by Andrea Downing

     Three or four months of the year, I’m lucky enough to get out to my home in Wyoming, where I am happiest.  It is just 5 miles down the road from Grand Teton National Park and about an hour from the entrance to Yellowstone, depending on the pesky tourist numbers.  I try to be out when the least people are about—April/May and late September through early November.  I haven’t yet spent a winter out here, being something of a coward, but it is on the cards.  For now, I thought I’d share a few photos to show why I love this place so much.

 

 The famous arches of Jackson town square

 

                     The Moulton Barn, apparently most photographed barn in USA

                                              Old Faithful at Yellowstone

                               

Chapel of the Transfiguration at Grand Teton

                                                                    the Aspens in leaf

                                                       Bison grazing at Yellowstone

                A bear at Lupine Meadows, Grand Teton--keeping my distance!

                                Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River

                     Mount Moran behind a still-frozen Jenny Lake

 

                                                            Lewis Falls

and finally

the entrance to the Cunningham Cabin, an early homestead in Grand Teton NP

    The Cunningham Cabin proved to be the inspiration for my novella, Dearest Darling, part of the Wild Rose Press ‘Love Letters’ series and my one crack at a mail order bride story.  It won The Golden Quill for Best Novella, as well as several categories at The Maple Leaf Awards, and placed in both the International Digital Awards and The Chanticleer Awards.  

Here’s the blurb:

 

Stuck in a life of servitude to her penny-pinching brother, Emily Darling longs for a more exciting existence. When a packet with travel tickets, meant for one Ethel Darton, accidentally lands on her doormat, Emily sees a chance for escape. Having turned down the dreary suitors that have come her way, is it possible a new existence also offers a different kind of man?

 

Daniel Saunders has carved out a life for himself in Wyoming—a life missing one thing: a wife. Having scrimped and saved to bring his mail-order bride from New York, he is outraged to find in her stead a runaway fraud. Even worse, the impostor is the sister of his old enemy.

But people are not always as they seem, and sometimes the heart knows more than the head.

 

EXCERPT:

 

Emily liked the sound of his voice, low but not husky, a slight twang he had cultivated, but not pretentiously so. When he spoke, she envisaged melting caramel, something delicious, the way it could be so appealing as she stirred, with a shine and slow drip from the spoon, before it gradually solidified. Soothing. A liquid velvet.

But he hadn’t spoken today. Not since first thing when he’d told her to get ready. Not through breakfast, or as he helped clear dishes, or gave her a hand up into the wagon.

“You haven’t seen her. You didn’t see her picture, did you?” The questions came sudden, yet without malice.

Emily straightened, alert. “No. No, I didn’t.” Would I understand better? Is that what he meant?

“I keep it with me.” Daniel began to fish in his pocket. “Would you like to see it?”

“No. No, you keep it, please. It won’t change anything.” Emily panicked. She would be beautiful, the other, that would be the answer. So stunningly beautiful that just her photograph had enthralled him, mesmerized him into loving her. Emily couldn’t bear to look, didn’t want to know the answer. Didn’t wish to torture herself further. “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for reading the letters.” A rush of words, they flowed out of her. “I should never have done that. It’s not like me. But you...well, you understand it seems—”

“You’re probably wondering what I see in her. Or what she sees in me. As for that, what she sees in me, I have no idea. Maybe, like you, she wishes to get away.”

Emily studied his profile, the planes and contours of his face, the eyes set straight ahead, the slouch hat low on his brow. He gave nothing away, was a man in control of his emotions, thinking, maybe still wondering how he had won that woman. Or maybe set on keeping the answer to himself.

Overhead, clouds scudded, scoured the sky, leached the blue, threatened.

“Did you ever ask her? Why you?”

“I did. She never answered. I’m thinking what she sees in me is husband material. I guess. She tells me about her day, the people she knows, what she does. As you read.”

“She just seems so...so outgoing, so...so very social to ever want this life. I found it difficult to believe.” She jutted her chin out, then turned to him, waiting.

He gave the reins a sharp shake. “I don’t know. I never asked if she knew what she was getting into. I described it. I assumed if she wanted to stop the correspondence there, she would have. I was pretty damn amazed and happy she’d wanted to come, written back even though I described the cabin to her, the isolation.” His gaze slid toward her.

“And you think she’ll make you a perfect wife, do you? Be happy living here? Cook your meals, mend your clothes, keep your cabin, have your babies?” Exasperated, she tried to make him think, think of what he was letting himself in for, how long a marriage like that could go on, how it could end up being even lonelier than he was now. Emily would seem to him to be trying to win him over rather than making him see the truth, but push him she must, save him, stop him. She knew those sorts of women, the debutantes, the socialites. Not a one would last out here, not for a single day.

His head snapped around to stare at her. “She’s been writing. She hasn’t stopped.”

 

Buy Links:  Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Dearest-Darling-Letters-Andrea-Downing-ebook/dp/B00NGWT816/   Also on Audible

 

Ibooks:  https://books.apple.com/us/author/andrea-downing/id547850055

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Emptying Shelves and Filling Minds

By Andrea Downing

 

With the on-going dispute as to whether certain Dr. Seuss books should be removed from shelves due to their outdated views and racism, I thought I would have a look at banned books, both past and present. While the Seuss books were not strictly banned, they have been removed from libraries, and publication of the notorious six has been stopped. What happens when freedom of speech, and the inherent writing, conflict with the mores of the time?  

The Puritans, of course, were masters of telling folks what they could and could not read and write. The first known banned book in America was Thomas Morton’s New English Canaan published in 1637. It encouraged readers to love Native Americans and satirized the Puritans. In the eighteenth century, while America still strained under the yoke of Britain, Defoe’s Moll Flanders and Roxana: the Fortunate Mistress, as well as the perhaps more infamous Fanny Hill by John Cleland, met the censor’s ax. Fanny Hill bears the dubious distinction of being the last book to be banned throughout the USA. While the dime novels of the nineteenth century may have caused an outrage or two, increased literacy, and hence literary output, seems to have led to an accepted form of censorship. Expurgation and the accompanying bowdlerization of numerous books was acknowledged as protecting public virtue and decency. Even Shakespeare did not elude cuts. Perhaps the most famous of nineteenth century banned books is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

First banned in MA in 1885 as “trash and suitable only for the slums,” Huck Finn has been repeatedly challenged, usually on the basis on the N—word, appearing over 200 times in the book. In the 1950s, the NAACP began challenging the book as racist because of its portrayal of the slave Jim and the repeated use of racially pejorative terms—a conflict that has repeatedly harassed To Kill A Mockingbird as well. During his lifetime, Twain aka Samuel Clemens, simply saw the controversies surrounding his book as excellent fodder for promotion. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is occasionally credited with having started the Civil War but, although it may have been difficult to purchase in southern states, it was never officially banned. I’m sure Congress might have liked to ban Helen Hunt Jackson’s A Century of Dishonor as well as Ramona, both of which deal with the treatment of Native Americans, especially by the federal government, but that didn’t happen either.

However, in the twentieth century, guardians of public morality became rife. Almost everything Theodore Dreiser wrote was either challenged or banned: Sister Carrie, Genius, and An American Tragedy were all held in check by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, The Western Society for the Prevention of Vice, and the Boston District Attorney. But it was James Joyce’s Ulysses, considered by many one of the great masterpieces of modern literature, that really brought up a host of questions as to what is acceptable as freedom of speech and what is not: what has literary merit and what is pornographic? It is a question that bears heavily on free speech, under the

jurisdiction of individual states, the federal government only being able to intervene when items are passed between states. The federal government passed an obscenity law in 1873 when the Supreme Court decided that pornography/obscenity was not protected by the First Amendment, yet this still leaves the question open as to what is obscene. The toing and froing over Ulysses took some fifteen years internationally to finally be settled in a NY court of law when it was decided that Joyce’s purpose, despite several sexually explicit scenes, was not pornographic. I can only wonder if E.L. James can truly stand up to such a test. Oh, but I forget: today we have ‘erotic’ literature…

The other famous court case of the twentieth century was, of course, Lady Chatterly’s Lover. I can well remember the girlish giggles accompanying “discussion” of who had a copy of the book and where we might gather to read passages away from the prying eyes of teachers and parents. Chatterly and Tropic of Cancer, of course. Chatterly had been banned for both its coarse language and explicit scenes of a sexual nature, but in 1959 the ban of this, along with Fanny Hill and Tropic of Cancer, was overturned when the court found it had merit of a literary nature. As an aside, let me say that the case was then taken up in the UK the following year, where the judge asked the famous question, “would you want your wife and servants to read this book?” After three hours of deliberation in Her Majesty’s Court, the answer was, “yes.”

Nowadays, the predominant challenge to books is that they are unsuitable for their age group, having too much violence, too much sex for their age group, containing controversial issues, offensive language, promoting homosexuality, containing drugs/alcohol/smoking/gambling, being socially offensive, containing nudity, and just about any other ‘vice’ you can think of. Recently banned books include The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, which work contains “cultural insensitivity” and “depictions of bullying,” the Harry Potter series, Of Mice and Men, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, The Color Purple, Catcher in the Rye, To Kill A Mockingbird, Snow Falling on Cedars, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Kite Runner and, yes, Huck Finn. And Tango Makes Three, a true story about same-sex penguins who were given an egg to raise after building a nest together and trying to raise a ‘rock’, has been challenged numerous times as promoting homosexuality. I wonder if the author ever thought twice about not writing this incredible story?

This year’s list continues to include Huck as well as To Kill a Mockingbird. There is also The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (about a Black girl who prays every day for blond hair and blue eyes), The Cay by Theodore Taylor (about a blinded 11-year-old boy who must rely on a West Indian man), Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor (about racisim during the Great Depression and Jim Crow era), The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (banned due to drug use and explicit language), George by Alex Gino (with a transgender lead character), and This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki (banned for LGBTQIA+ characters, drug use, and profanity, scenes of a sexually explicit nature).

Different parents, different schools and libraries, different states will each see these books in a very different light:  do they enlighten or do they incite vice, do they educate or instruct immorality? And where does freedom of speech stop and inculcating evils—if such they be—begin?

 

 

Parts of this post appeared on my blog in November, 2015, titled “So You Think We Have Freedom of Speech?”

 

 

 

 

ARMS AND THE MAN: SAMUEL COLT

By Andrea Downing

 

 

Most of the authors here at Cowboy Kisses write historical western romance, and at some point in their stories, a Colt .45 or a Colt Peacemaker or some other Colt gun is sure to make an appearance.  But I wonder how many of us know the story of the man behind those guns:  Samuel Colt.

Samuel Colt by Matthew Brady, 1857

     Born in 1814, Colt seems to have had an early interest in blowing up things.  It was after a show of pyrotechnics at his boarding school, and a subsequent fire, that he was sent off to be a seaman and go to London and Calcutta. While on board, he noted that the ship’s wheel could either turn or be locked into position by employing a ratchet or clutch mechanism.  He duly carved from scrap wood a similar mechanism for a gun, which could hold 5 or 6 bullets in a rotating cylinder. Back in the states in 1832, his father financed the production of both a rifle and a hand gun, but when the former exploded on being fired, these early demonstrations went no further.

Since he had learned about nitrous oxide (laughing gas) in his father’s textile plant, Colt decided to present himself as Dr. Coult in demonstrations across the US. Entertaining crowds in fairground presentations and other shows, he made enough money to start his first firearms business. Only 21 when he received his first Patent, the Colt Patent Arms Manufacturing Company opened in Paterson, NJ. Sales were low with most in TX and FL (for use in war with the Seminoles). The business floundered and closed in 1842 leaving Colt in debt. But without Colt knowing it, down in TX his 5-shot gun was finding favor.

Part of Colt's Patent application, courtesy of The Gutenberg Project

Famed Captain of the Texas Rangers, Samuel Walker, wrote to Colt to tell him how the Rangers were partial to his firearm. When the Rangers were joined by the US Army to fight the Mexican American War in 1846, the fame of the gun spread.  It was then Walker worked with Colt to develop an improved .44, and President Taylor ordered one thousand for his army. 

Colt was back in business. He built a factory in Hartford, Conn., his hometown, along the Connecticut River. This was subsequently enlarged in 1855 to include games rooms, washing stations, parks, orchards, a railroad depot, a beer garden, and tenement housing for his employees. He was one of the first to use assembly line production with the employees working ten hours daily. In this way, he was able to produce some 150 guns a day. Colt also manufactured the Gatling gun, underwater detonators, and in a deal with Samuel Morse, underwater telegraph cable. In addition, in 1853, he opened a plant in London although after only four years it closed; the guns did not prove popular with the British Army or Navy., CT

The Colt Mansion, 80 Wethersfield Avenue, Hartford, CT

Prior to the Civil War, Colt supplied guns to both sides, which did not sit well with the Union.  Despite this, he was made a Lt. Col. in 1861 and formed the 1^st Regiment Colt’s Revolving Rifles.  They never saw action.

A marketing genius, Colt employed George Catlin, the famed painter of Native Americans, to portray the guns in a dozen paintings. Colt also made gifts of his weapons in signed presentation boxes to numerous heads of state, traveling to present the gilded and engraved pistols. Colt even trademarked his signature. And, of course, he had the slogan “God created men; Col. Colt made them equal.”

Colt’s private life was somewhat less smooth-sailing.  He purportedly had a marriage in Scotland in 1838 to one Caroline Henshaw. Henshaw was left pregnant and later married Colt’s brother, John, in 1841 to legitimize the child she bore.  John, however, was convicted of murder in 1842 and sentenced to hang.  He took his own life prior. Colt recognized the child,  Samuel Caldwell Colt, in his Will.  Colt and his wife, Elizabeth Jarvis Colt, had one son, Caldwell Hart Colt; three other children passed at birth or before age four.

Elizaabeth and Caldwell Colt, 1865

Samuel Colt died from complications from gout in 1862. He left an estate of $15M—some $387M at today’s value. The estate passed to his wife with her brother, Richard Jarvis, handling the business side of the company.

The Single Action Army Handgun was not produced until some ten years after Colt’s death.  Samuel Colt never held the Peacemaker—the Colt .45.

 

A Colt was one of the guns my hero, Shiloh Coltrane, carries on his search for the murderers of his sister and her son in Shot Through the Heart.

Gunslinger Shiloh Coltrane has returned home to work the family's Wyoming ranch, only to find there's still violence ahead. His sister and nephew have been murdered, and the killers are at large.
Dr. Sydney Cantrell has come west to start her medical practice, aiming to treat the people of a small town. As she tries to help and heal, she finds disapproval and cruelty the payment in kind.
When the two meet, it's an attraction of opposites. As Shiloh seeks revenge, Sydney seeks to do what's right. Each wants a new life, but will trouble or love find them first?

 

Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54751926-shot-through-the-heart

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Shot-Through-Heart-Andrea-Downing-ebook/dp/B08DHV8VQ5/

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/shot-through-the-heart-by-andrea-downing

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shot-through-the-heart-andrea-downing/1137387142?ean=9781509232345

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/shot-through-the-heart-18

 

EXCERPT:

Sydney watched as he rolled out his bedroll where the table had been, now pushed aside. “I’ll get you some fresh water,” she said as she made a move toward the door.

“No. You don’t know who might be lurking out there, who might’ve snuck up. I’ll go.”

Frustrated, she stamped her foot. “You are sooo annoying! You won’t be here tomorrow night, or the night after. I look after myself, Mr. Coltrane! I—”

“I thought we were using first names now.” His hands found his hips and he had that funny smile once more.

She pursed her lips, trying to hold in her anger. “It doesn’t matter what I call you! You are still the most infuriating man I’ve ever met.”

“Met many, then?” He had one brow up and a smirk now.

“I’m a doctor. Of course I’ve ‘met’ many.”

“Dead or alive?”

“Very funny.” She grabbed the dishcloth and flicked it before spreading it out on the handle of the range. “Good night!”

“Good night, Sydney,” he said mildly as she headed for her bedroom and slammed the door.

In the dark, she lay as she did many nights, the moon glowing through her window, a shadow cast of the cross panes, her thoughts simmering in her brain. He had asked why she had become a doctor and her answer had not been the complete truth. She recalled now a dinner party her parents had given when she was sixteen, new acquaintances her father had met at his bank, a professor and his wife. Sydney had formed an instant attachment to them, held the woman in high esteem, admired her greatly for being a doctor, having a profession. And the husband! It had been love at first sight, or what she considered love at her tender age, a ‘crush,’ infatuation of the deepest variety. Not only had he been kind, handsome, and good-natured, unlike the example her own father had set, but he was learned and interesting, fascinating even. She would have walked over freshly fired nails had he asked her. The example they had set stayed with her. She would emulate them, walk the same path as they.

From the front room came the sound of the board creaking as Shiloh turned in his sleep. A very different man from Professor Willis. A man who took things into his own hands, a man of doing, of action rather than study, complacency and thought. There was something here that attracted her as well. There was kindness in Coltrane, but kindness of a different sort, and where the professor had been handsome with his goatee, dark eyes, and studious, respectable demeanor, Shiloh Coltrane had a sort of rough and ready beauty to him, the unkempt appearance and bearing of someone who worked hard to get what he wanted. That, too, was very appealing.

Her loneliness grew on her, was amplified with the knowledge there was a man in the next room whose soft, even breathing she imagined she could hear. Other things she could imagine, too. Sleeping in his arms, his hard body wrapped around her, their legs entwined, the intimacy of shared jokes, little whispers through the soft night. And if she went through that door? If she lay down next to him?

If she could just have the peace of companionship for one night?

Her bed moaned slightly as she shifted her weight to touch her bare feet to the floor, her light nightdress falling about her. Cat-like, she tiptoed and clasped the doorknob, stopped in her tracks, wondered if she knew what she was doing, and why she was doing it? Just a peek, she told herself. Just a glance to let her imagination know better. A kind of yearning and curiosity rolled into one.

Giving in to her own inability to sleep unless she just had this one glimpse of him, she turned the knob and slipped into the front room. The profile of Shiloh bundled in his bedroll, lit by the moon, greeted her. She advanced with care, afraid to wake him, and then heard the metallic clunk as his gun hit the floor. She stood and stared down at him: his hands cradled his head, elbows akimbo, the thin smile upon his lips.

And then he reached out his hand, his palm open, and she let the long fingers wrap around her wrist and guide her down.

 

    

 

Not Your Dimestore Scarecrow

 by Patti Sherry-Crews

It’s that time of year when the colorful, round-faced, smiling scarecrows are everywhere. Decorating the neighbors’ porches. Maybe sitting on a bale of hay. In shop windows. Aren’t they cute?

I’ve been thinking a lot about pests this year because hordes of chipmunks, rabbits, raccoons, possums, and squirrels have been destroying both my vegetable and our newly planted pollinator gardens. Plenty of skunk too, who I don’t think are bothering my plants, but nonetheless, they're skunks. Everyday, looking out at my yard it looks like a scene from Bambi with all the happy critters cavorting in my garden. We’ve tried everything: coyote urine, chunks of a well-known pungent soap, chicken wire, and sprinkling cat and human hair around the plants. But every morning I wake up to the destruction of half-eaten tomatoes and flowers nibbled down to their roots.

I’ve been imagining what a failure my we'd make as homesteaders. I’ve been looking back to see what ways the old timers used to deter pests--scarecrows being one of them. Only not the cheerful kind we see around our neighborhoods. 

Scarecrows, it turns out, have an interesting history. They emerged in the ancient world, Egypt, Japan, and Greece, at about the same time. And there was nothing cute about them.

The Greeks modeled their scarecrow on the son of Dionysus and Aphrodite, Priapus, who was said to be so ugly he scared birds. These wooden statues were painted purple and put in fields. Priapus had a club and a sickle in each hand and a large….you can look that one up yourself. His name is a clue to his other signature feature.

The Romans borrowed the Priapus scarecrow and spread it all over the Roman Empire extending into Europe.

Later in medieval Europe, it was the task of children to guard the fields and chase away pests. Sadly, the plague diminished the population to the point there weren’t enough bodies to patrol the fields, soooo, back to scarecrows. Old clothes stuffed with rags or straw with an animal skull or a gourd for a head, maybe stick some putrid meat in there for that olfactory defense.

Native Americans also needing to protect their crops, used both human guards and scarecrows. Zuni children held contests to see who could make the scariest scarecrow.

European immigrants to America brought their tradition of scarecrows, though they were called different names by different cultures. For instance, in Germany they are called Bootzamon, which later became the Bogyman.

There was a time when the American landscape was dotted with scarecrows. Then they disappeared in a puff of DDT. After DDT was found to be harmful, farmers developed new, higher tech ways to scare off pests, and scarecrows were regulated to a peaceful retirement as holiday decorations.

In many farming cultures around the world, it was traditional to burn the scarecrow at the end of harvest and return it to the earth. That is why scarecrows, like snowmen, are classified as “ephemerals”--creations not meant to spend much time on earth.

As old as scarecrows themselves, are the stories of them coming to life. For instance, a Japanese story in the year 712 features a scarecrow, Kuebiko, who can’t walk but knows everything. And arguably the most famous animated scarecrow, is the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz. He only wanted a brain, and discovered he had wisdom after all. 

There’s something about a scarecrow.

Here is my own living scarecrow, my husband, armed with a slingshot to scare of Bambi's little friends away from his bird feeders. Don't worry, he slinging crabapples and no animals were injured, just startled.

And to get everyone in the spirit of Halloween, fellow Cowboy Kisses author, Andrea Downing, and I have put together a scary twofer for you. Two novellas from a collection of stories connected by a paranormal detective agency set in the old west for only $0.99!

About From the Files of Nat Tremayne:

The Wild West gets even wilder when Nat Tremayne sends out his agents from Psychic Specters Investigations offices in St. Louis and Denver. Across country and across time, these agents will stop at nothing to unravel the mysteries that beset poor unsuspecting ranchers and cowboys who have no idea what they’re seeing . . .or not, as the case may be.
In The Ghost and The Bridegroom, P.S.I. Agent Healy Harrison is sent to Tucson to rid a rancher of the ghost in the bedroom interfering with his marriage to a mail-order bride. Healy doesn’t think she’s destined for romance—until she meets Pinkerton detective Aaron Turrell. But when their two cases dovetail, will their newfound love survive the ultimate showdown the between mortal and immortal.

In Long A Ghost and Far Away, agent Dudley Worksop aims to unravel the mystery of Colby Gates’ dead wife. Lizzie not only seems to have reappeared as a ghost, but has time traveled from 2016 to the 1800s. Can revenge be had for her murder? And can the couple be reunited across country and across time?
These stories originally appeared in The Good, The Bad, and The Ghostly.

available on Amazon

COVER REVEAL! and Pre-Release of SHOT THROUGH THE HEART

COVER REVEAL! COVER REVEAL! COVER REVEAL!

by Andrea Downing

 

I’m happy to announce that my latest Historical Western Romance will be released on August 31.  It is currently in pre-order at https://www.amazon.com/Shot-Through-Heart-Andrea-Downing-ebook/dp/B08DHV8VQ5/

 Barnes and Noble https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shot-through-the-heart-andrea-downing/1137387142?ean=9781509232345

iBooks on app

Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54751926-shot-through-the-heart

BookBub https://www.bookbub.com/books/shot-through-the-heart-by-andrea-downing

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Can revenge be on your mind when you’ve been Shot Through the Heart?

 

Gunslinger Shiloh Coltrane has returned home to work the family's Wyoming ranch, only to find there's still violence ahead. His sister and nephew have been murdered, and the killers are at large.
Dr. Sydney Cantrell has come west to start her medical practice, aiming to treat the people of a small town. As she tries to help and heal, she finds disapproval and cruelty the payment in kind.
When the two meet, it's an attraction of opposites. As Shiloh seeks revenge, Sydney seeks to do what's right. Each wants a new life, but will trouble or love find them first?

 

Excerpt:

 “Home. I’d like to see you ride off now please.”

“I’ll ride off but I want to ask you: what difference would it make if I said no? Or if I rode off and circled back? You think you’re safe here? On your own? I showed you in the office what could happen. So, what do you think your pleasant little request would do if I, or anyone else, didn’t feel like riding off? What would you do then?”

She pulled the knife so fast she knew he’d hardly seen her hand move. It had taken a lot of practice to learn to do, but practice she had. And she knew just how to use it.

“An Arkansas toothpick? Is that what that is?”

“If that’s what you call it. Back east we just called it a clasp-knife. You see, this one springs out. And before you ask, yes, I know how to use it. I studied surgery, after all.”

“I bet you did, but…”

She closed the knife and slid down from her horse. “I’m tired of this conversation, Mr. Coltrane. I’d appreciate it if you headed off now.” She started to undo the cinch on her horse and pulled the saddle, swinging it over the rail of her fence.

“Tell me one thing—”

She swiveled back to him, squinting across at him on his horse, the moon just lighting his features so she could see his darkening beard and some of the scrapes and nicks from the glass. “No, you tell me one thing!”

“All right. What?” 

She knew from his snarl he wasn’t going to be happy about answering, whatever her question was.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why, really, are you following me?”

Coltrane made the slightest movement in his saddle as if he were getting more comfortable. His breathing got more pronounced but his hands were still on the reins as he glowered down at her. She could hear him make a decisive smack with his mouth but still he didn’t reply. He looked away as if he were considering what to do, then pivoted back to her.

“My sister inherited our ranch from my father. My father thought I was a good for nothing—” 

“And are you?”

“Probably. Maybe then. Maybe not so much now.”

“So?”

“She then married a man, Oswald Parmeter was his name, maybe is his name if the bastard’s still alive. Had a child by him. A real good-for-nothing who fell in with a bunch of other no-goods, outlaws. Parmeter left her on the ranch. Alone. With the child. Then one night—”

“I don’t think I want to hear the rest.”

“No, ’course you don’t. You know what happened, and you know it could happen to you.”

She moved around her horse to stand just below him and peered up at him. “Mr. Coltrane, I’m not your sister, the outlaws aren’t coming back here. You have to get on home now.”

He ignored her. “They killed both her and the child, those animals. For what? For what reason? As far as anyone can make out, it was because Parmeter had run off with some of their money or something and it was their revenge. He told them, I believe, if he inherited the ranch and some money she had, he could pay them back.”

She felt sick. Men who could kill a child and a woman really were animals. Just as he said. She clasped her forehead, then glanced back up at him. “Where…where were you when this happened?”

He snorted. “I was just as my father said I was: good for nothing. I came back to make a fresh start shortly after and heard the whole thing. The town doesn’t like me much because I asked too many questions, stirred up their shame. Not to mention I went round every damn ranch in the area and got our herd back. Most of them had used a running iron to change the brand but it was plain as day. Others had felt sorry the cattle weren’t being seen to, were honest people, and handed them over. So now I’m waiting.”

“Waiting?”

“Waiting to decide what to do next. Waiting to see if those bastards come on back. Or Parmeter comes back to claim what I guess is rightly his—my ranch. As her legal husband it should be his, but I’ll be damned and in my grave before I let him have it.”

Sydney got hold of her horse’s bridle and swung the reins over his head to lead him to his stall. She turned back to Coltrane as she opened her gate. “Get home, Mr. Coltrane, and stop worrying—or even thinking—about me. I’ve managed to get myself here and can look out for myself. Seems like you’ve got other things to worry about. I’m fine.”

She could just hear him mumble, ‘Last words,’ as he reined his horse to the east and headed home.

 

Sydney realized she had never thought of outlaws or bandits or whatever the heck they called them out here. She had just wanted to get away from the east and her humiliations at wanting to be a doctor, the way her parents had more or less disinherited her, and she had been forced to take advantage of the kindness of her professor and his wife, another female doctor. She’d known she could never repay them, but she could make them proud and feel they had accomplished what they had set out to do—make her an outstanding practitioner, serving patients who needed her. Iona, the wife, had passed on now and relations with Garnforth, the professor, had become complicated, but her feeling of indebtedness hadn’t gone. 

The cabin was something the Agency let her have, near enough to the reservation but far away enough for her not to be a temptation to the soldiers at the fort. Somewhere in her was a belief soldiers were upstanding, kept the peace, served the good, and would hardly do anything so crass and wrong as to take advantage of a woman. Surely, they knew their commanding officer would deal sharply with them if they even tried. But their words, their language, even the ignorance of the wives who were there and shunned her—that was most puzzling. The women preferred having a male doctor look to their needs rather than a ‘disgraceful’ woman.

The door creaked open and she dropped her bag to get hold of the lantern, opened the glass and struck one of her Diamond matches by feel until the flame blossomed and she lit the wick. The sound of the glass hitting the rim as she replaced it relieved the quiet for a moment before she plopped her hat on the table and turned to the basin whose water had chilled during the day. Too tired to go out and get fresh and heat it, she grabbed the soap and scrub brush and scrubbed her hands before washing her face. As she leant over the basin, she recalled Shiloh Coltrane, the feel of his breath on her face, the hands that seemed almost elegant—too elegant for a man like that—and his resolve she be safe. She found it difficult to think straight, to sort her feelings about a man who insisted on seeing her home safely while he projected the hard countenance and isolation of a loner. It was a conundrum.

She undressed and changed for bed, slipped between the covers, but it was Shiloh Coltrane’s face she saw in front of her, Shiloh Coltrane’s voice she heard. And Shiloh Coltrane’s warning that echoed in her mind.

   

 

CHRISTMAS IN JULY: THE WHEN, WHO, AND WHY ~ By: Andrea Downing

 Ever wonder where the concept of having Christmas in July came from? I did, so I did a bit of on-line research.

The first mention of a Christmas in July is apparently in the 1894 French opera, Werther, based on a book by Goethe. In the story, a group of children rehearse a Christmas song in July; apparently, in the book, Christmas is mentioned but there’s nothing about July.  Whether this had any influence on the general development of ‘Christmas in July’ is, to me, rather doubtful.

A more likely influence is the groups of vaudevillians who gathered at so-called actors’ colonies once the theatres closed for the summer due to the heat. In the time before air-conditioning, actors would take a summer break at  vacation camps and, because they had been working over December, they enjoyed celebrating Christmas in July.  This first occurred around 1915, and the celebration was complete with tree, Santa, and presents.

As vaudeville slowly disappeared from the theatrical scene around 1930, a girl’s camp in North Carolina, Camp Keystone, took up the idea around 1933, again complete with presents and so forth. By 1935, the idea was fairly widespread throughout summer camps.  But it was a Hollywood movie in 1940 actually titled Christmas in July that brought the idea to the nation’s attention. By 1942, a Washington, DC, church took on the idea with services in the summer broadcast over the radio.

Then, in 1944, the U.S. Postal Service along with branches of the Armed Forces threw a luncheon in NYC in July to bring attention to the need for early mailing of Christmas cards to service men and women overseas. By 1950, Christmas in July was a popular marketing tool and used in advertising. The main idea was to clear the shelves to begin getting ready for the real Christmas. It has also become a good chance for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere to have a little Christmas celebration during their winter, while those of us in the Northern Hemisphere sit back and enjoy repeats of Christmas specials on TV and open those Christmas-themed books we didn’t have a chance to get to read last Christmas.

Such as… 

A Christmas Carole

Carrie Matheson is happy to start a new life at the Wyoming ranch she has inherited, but her six-year-old son wants to return to New York. As Christmas approaches and his pleas to Santa receive replies, it’s alarm bells, not sleigh bells that start ringing.
            Tate Schrugge is amused by his new neighbor when she jogs over with some mis- delivered mail, but after she calls him Scrooge, she’s definitely not on his Christmas list.
            If these two can get together, it might be the Dickens of a romance.

 

Just .99 at  https://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Carole-Dickens-Romance-ebook/dp/B08BT1MC76/

 

 

EXCERPT:

Carrie jogged in place so she could make the run back to her ranch, and knocked with a somewhat heavy hand on the front door. Footsteps sounded from inside and Carrie pulled the letters out from her pack, scanned them briefly before the door opened and revealed a stout woman.

This person smiled a welcome as she stood giving Carrie the once over, and then took a step back.

Carrie continued her jogging. “Uh. Mrs. Scrooge…I mean, Schrugge?”

The woman’s face abruptly changed. “You call anyone around here Scrooge and you’ll be the one wishing for Christmas past. What can I do for you?”

“Sorry. Sorry, only these letters were mistakenly left over at the Lazy M so I—”

“Hetty? Do you need me?” A deep, rich voice came from further inside the house, followed by the soft tread of socked feet approaching.

Carrie was trying to continue to jog in place but nearly tripped over her own feet when the owner of the voice appeared. She found herself peering up at about six foot three of brown-haired, blue-eyed, chiseled cowboy. Somewhat embarrassed, she noted his gaze run over her from her baseball cap to her sneakers and back up again, a suppressed smile on his face before he spoke. She swiped a line of sweat winding its way down from under her cap.

“Uh.” He seemed at a loss for words. “Can I help?”

Hetty’s knuckled fist sat on her expansive waist and she shook her head. “She’s brought letters from the Lazy M.”

He looked confused. “An invitation?”

Was there the merest glimmer of hope in his voice? “No, um . . . letters meant for you were mistakenly put in my box.” Carrie handed over the pile. “I mean, I’m sure if I were inviting . . .or having a party—oh hell, I mean, I’m sure—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Get hold of yourself, will you, and stop jiggling about like that for a second.”  Hetty shook her head in dismay, then looked up to the rancher. “I’ll leave Miss Smelly Neon Bright with you to sort out, I’ve got work to do.” And with that, she waddled away.

Carrie took in a deep breath and started again. “Sorry. The letters were left in our mailbox so I brought them over. That’s all.”

“Got it the first time. Or maybe it was the second.”  His gaze examined her once more and his brow wrinkled. “You said ‘our box’. Are you…?”

“Sorry, I should have introduced myself. Carrie Matheson.” She extended her damp hand and the cowboy grasped it.

“Tate.”

Carrie noticed he didn’t give his last name, but then again, he didn’t have to since she had his letters.

“I was sorry to hear about Tom’s passing. You must’ve been very close.”

“Well. No, actually, he was my father’s older brother and we rarely saw him.”

“Oh.”

“But he left me the ranch I guess as his only relative, so I’m here now.”

“I can see that.”

Carrie stood in stupefied embarrassment for a moment before she tried to jog once more. “Well. I better be off. I’m running.”

“Yeah. I can see that, too. I was sort of hoping that wasn’t your normal attire.”

Carrie caught her breath and had to stop herself from smacking him. The nerve! He probably never wore anything other than jeans and a checked shirt. Even if those jeans did fit remarkably well, and the blue checked shirt brought out his eyes. She glared at him one long instant before stepping off the porch to leave. Then she twisted back to him.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Scrooge.”