My Story Inspiration for Rescuing Raven

 

By Jacqui Nelson

What inspires a short story? And can an author (who loves history) fit another iconic history-infused setting (Deadwood, South Dakota, during the gold rush) into a 6,000-word story that's also filled with romance and adventure? It was a challenge, believe me, but it was the best kind of challenge!

During my March, April, and May monthly blogs with Cowboys Kisses, I shared my Story Inspiration pages (the page I've included in the back of all of my books) for Between Heaven & Hell, Following Faith, and Choosing Bravery. 

Now it's time to share the Story Inspiration page for the story that chronologically follows those three, but this story was designed to be enjoyed at any time (including before reading the others)...

RESCUING RAVEN 

Story Inspiration page ~ from the back of the book

Being an avid fan of the Dances with Wolves movie (starring Kevin Costner and Graham Greene) and the Deadwood TV series (starring Ian McShane and Timothy Olyphant), I’d always wanted to write a story set in South Dakota or the town of Deadwood. After registering for the 2018 Wild Deadwood Reads (WDR) author-reader event, an intriguing opportunity arose—join 16 authors (who would also be attending the event) in writing a new story for a limited-edition anthology called Wild Deadwood Tales. The anthology would be available for 2018 only, it would be showcased at WDR and Deadwood’s annual Professional Bull Riders (PBR) event, and all proceeds would go to the Western Sports Foundation (WSF).


The WSF and the PBR connections had many of the anthology authors choosing to write stories about modern-day bull riders, but I’m a historical fiction author—who now had her chance to write about Deadwood in 1876! 


Why 1876? That’s the year the town of Deadwood was born. Prior to 1876, the site was a gulch with dead trees. Then gold was found in the Black Hills and white settlers flooded in—illegally taking permanent residence on the Lakota’s sacred land that had been forbidden to whites by the U.S. government’s 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. 


1876 is also the year of the Battle of the Little Big Horn—which was followed by General Crook’s march (from Montana Territory into the Dakota Territory) in pursuit of the Lakota Sioux. But General Crook only took enough rations for a few days—which resulted in the Horsemeat March (also known as the Starvation March) when his men had to eat their horses to survive. Near Deadwood, General Crook and his men fought the Battle of Slim Buttes and stole not only the Lakota’s winter food preserves but their horses (to replace the ones they’d eaten). 


Al Swearengen arrived in Deadwood early in 1876 and opened the Cricket Saloon, a barebones establishment that he built before his fancier and much more well-known Gem Theater. Not long after his arrival, his relationship with his first wife, Nettie, became extra complicated when a very attractive saloon girl named Kitty Austen came to town and became Al’s employee and more. 


All of this history created many complications for Raven (a Lakota woman born in the Black Hills) and Charlie Jennings (a white man from Oregon) who were perfect for each other even if their two worlds were not.

RESCUING RAVEN

Deadwood, Dakota Territory – 1876

Raven wants to save one person. Charlie wants to save the world. Their warring nations thrust them together but duty pulled them apart—until their paths crossed again in Deadwood for a fight for love.

In a gold rush storm, can an unlikely pair rescue each other?

Rescuing Raven features a grown-up Charlie Jennings who was a young boy in my Oregon Trail story, Between Heaven & Hell (set in 1850). You’ll also get to meet real-life (and really complicated) Al Swearengen—one of the first men to set up a business in Deadwood. Al’s most well-known saloon was The Gem Theater, but his first Deadwood saloon (the one shown in my story) was The Cricket. 

Click here to read an excerpt on my website.

THE LONESOME HEARTS SERIES 

Resuing Raven is part of my Lonesome Hearts series, which follows the frontiersmen and women who meet on the Oregon Trail and afterward. Each story includes one or more of the characters from the other books but is also a standalone read.

Click here to see a summary of all of my books on one page.

Hope you enjoyed my writing inspiration and that your Friday and your weekend are filled with sunny summer inspiration ☀️❤️

~ * ~

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All the Pretty Horses

Recently I had the awesome opportunity to spend a vacation with my sister--in South Dakota. Yes, while some of my friends are going to Europe this summer, I was positively giddy about visiting the American West! On our girls-only trip (after participating in Wild Deadwood Reads), we made a stop at the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary.

Look at that blaze!

 This 13,000-acre ranch is a little off the beaten path--but aren't most things that are truly spectacular?

In 1988, Oregon rancher Dayton Hyde raised the money to buy a ranch that had been in existence since the late 1880's. Today, the BHWHS has a herd of 700 wild horses--horses that have never had a saddle on them. They came here because they didn't qualify for the Bureau of Land Management's adoption program. "Listless, dejected, some have lost the will to live. Spirits broken, unwanted, either too old, too ugly, or too independent..." That was under BLM care. At the sanctuary, they thrive!

My sister making friends with a Choctaw pony--a special project at the sanctuary.

 My sister and I took a tour of the ranch and saw all four herds. This really was a spectacular opportunity for us. There were only 6 guests total. We drove out onto the land and saw not only the horses but a hill that is an ancient Sioux burial ground--they found this out because the horses would not walk across the area. Sonar shows hundreds of human bones! Centuries of Sioux at rest.

We also saw the cave where the original owner lived for two years while he built the ranch. Not to mention, remnants of a Pony Express station, and ancient petroglyphs! 

The cave where the original owner lived--for two years!

 You can visit the ranch, support it financially with donations or purchases from the gift shop. You can also adopt a horse virtually or for real! 

I have horses and know how hard it is to keep them pretty and healthy. I can't imagine the work involved in managing a herd of 700 horses, but these animals were beautiful and healthy-looking.

If you ever get to South Dakota, don't miss the sanctuary. And if you have a birthday or anniversary coming up, maybe someone would adopt a horse in your name. What a way to honor the spirit of the American West!

Part of the rock wall from the Pony Express station!

Our guide knew the horses really well. The ones who were nice and the ones who were a little iffy. Here he is pushing away a curious-but-unpredictable stallion.

We would do it again! South Dakota ROCKS!

Deadwood

I just returned from a reader/author event in Deadwood, SD. If you’re an author, this is the event for you. If you’re a reader, this is definitely the event for you. If you want to visit the Black Hills and wonder what else there is to do, check out Wild Deadwood Reads. I’m really hoping that this event will be scheduled for next year.

https://wilddeadwoodreads.wordpress.com/

As a history buff, Deadwood is a dream. History oozes from the bricks, whispers through the pines, and stares you in the face. Other than Bill Hickok meeting his untimely end in Deadwood and a few tidbits about Calamity Jane, I really didn’t know a lot about Deadwood’s history before I left for this event. So, being the curious type, I started searching on the Internet. (All the subsequent information is gleaned from the official site of the town of Deadwood.)

In 1875, a miner named John B. Pearson found gold in a narrow canyon in the Northern Black Hills. This canyon became known as "Deadwood Gulch," because of the many dead trees that lined the canyon walls at the time. The name stuck and Deadwood was born…kinda. It wasn’t until the gold rush into the Black Hills in 1876 that the town was established.

Deadwood circa 1876

Deadwood’s early history matches that of most frontier gold towns—wild, fairly lawless, and with a male population that vastly outnumbered that of the “fairer sex.” Saloons, gambling establishments, dance halls, and brothels were all considered legitimate businesses and were well known throughout the area. However, by 1877, Deadwood was evolving from a primitive mining camp to a community with a sense of order. The community organized a government, hired a sheriff to keep law and order, and began the transition from frontier to civilization. That transition almost came to an abrupt end when a fire on September 26, 1879 burned most of the business district. Rather than quit, the community set about to rebuild and passed laws requiring only certain building materials to be used for all construction. (Most of Deadwood’s historical district is constructed of brick and mortar for this reason.)

In 1890, the Fremont, Elkhorn, and Missouri Valley Railroad connected Deadwood to the outside world. Prior to that, in March 1878, Paul Rewman established Western South Dakota's first telephone exchange in Deadwood. Yes, you read that right—the telephone was in Deadwood. A flood in 1883 almost destroyed the town and another fire in 1894 took out a lot of the older timber constructed buildings, yet Deadwood continued on. Today, it is a tourist destination, a gambler’s paradise (perhaps harkening back to its much earlier days), and a gem of a city set in the stunning beauty of the Black Hills.