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

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23348501-dearest-darling

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dearest-darling-andrea-downing/1120514529

Kobo:  https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/dearest-darling-1

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/dearest-darling-love-letters-by-andrea-downing

 

 

Go Straight or Go Bad: Frank Canton

 By Andrea Downing

I first came upon the name of Frank Canton some years back when I wrote a piece called ‘A Lynching, an Opera, and a Book’ about the Johnson County War’s lynching of Cattle Kate (https://andreadowning.com/2012/08/31/a-lynching-an-opera-and-a-book/ )  Canton played a key role in that fiasco during his less savory days.  As many men of the time, he acted on both sides of the law, whichever suited him best at the time.  But let’s start at the beginning…

Canton was actually born Josiah Horner in 1849.  Some sources say his birthplace was Indiana, some Virginia, but whatever the case he moved with his family to Texas as a child and in his teens took jobs cowboying. Apparently herding cattle didn’t suit Josiah because by 1871 he was rustling them instead, and bank robbing. In 1874 he is on the record as having killed one Buffalo soldier and wounded another.  Josiah/Frank--who seems to bear a strong resemblance in this photo to Omar Sharif in  the film Doctor Zhivago--was arrested for bank robbery in 1877 in Texas, but escaped and tried to go straight.  It was then he changed his name to Frank Canton and returned to cattle herding…

But not for long.  He was taken on as a stock detective for the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, a powerful group who treated Wyoming open range as their own estates, and were trying to push out small landowners and ranchers by accusing them of rustling.  When Canton was elected Sheriff of Johnson County in 1885, he became indispensable to this group, but the position only lasted four years.  Canton left when a foreman of one of the WSGA ranches escaped his custody…but Canton didn’t go very far.  He continued to work partly as a Deputy Marshal and partly as an instrument for the WSGA.  When a homesteader was shot and killed, Canton was arrested, but the big ranchers managed to get him off the hook and Canton skedaddled to Illinois.

It was Canton, however, who led the Texas hired guns in the Johnson County War.  Brought in to kill off the small landowners and ranchers, Canton’s group were responsible for the lynching of  James Averell and Ellen Liddy Watson, known as ‘Cattle Kate.’  Without going into the full story of the Johnson County War here, Canton’s group were surrounded but saved by the cavalry sent in by President Benjamin Harrison.  The newspapers, under the thumb of the WSGA, made out Canton’s group to be the innocents.  Canton took advantage of that and left WY for good.

And that is when he seems to have turned over a new leaf.  He worked in Indian Territory, and served as a Deputy US Marshal.  Making a name for himself as an honest lawmen, he worked with such luminaries of the law enforcement field as Bass Reeves and Bill Tilghman. After a brief hiatus in the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897, Canton returned to the by-now Oklahoma Territory continuing as a lawmen.  When OK became a state in 1907, Canton became adjutant general of the Oklahoma National Guard.  He finally admitted his real name and bad deeds, but the TX Governor granted him a pardon on the basis of his years as a lawman.

By 1925, the aging Canton was forced to retire on grounds of ill health and he and his wife Annie moved in with their unmarried daughter in Edmond, OK.  Canton died of cancer in 1927, just a few days after his 78^thbirthday.

  

(!st photo of Canton, public domain; older Canton from Oklahoma Historical Society)

 

 

The theme of gunslingers and outlaws trying to go straight is a frequent one in literature, and I’m guilty as well of taking up the trope. 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?

 

Here’s an 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, tried 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 fell 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.

 

Buy Links:

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

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

    

 

Fifteen Native American Thoughts for Christmas and the New Year

 

By Andrea Downing

 

Wisdom is universal, whether it comes from a Judeo-Christian background or one that embraces Nature and Mother Earth. Here are fifteen proverbs and sayings from Native Americans that we’d all be well to consider this holiday season.

 

1. Tell me a fact and I’ll learn. Tell me a Truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.

 

2. The hardest journey is the one you take from your head to your heart.  The healing journey is found in the path leading back from heart to your head.

 

3. Be strong when you are weak, be brave when you are scared, be humble when you are victorious.

 

4. We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.

 

5. We can only be what we give ourselves the Power to be.

 

6.  The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears.

 

7. It does not require many words to speak the truth. (Chief Joseph, Nez Perce)

 

8.  Take care when you speak in judgment.  Words are powerful weapons.

 

9. Do not pray when it is raining if you do not pray when the sun is shining.

 

10. Be selective in your battles; sometimes peace is better than being right.

 

11. The tragedy of life is not death but what we let die inside of us while we live.

 

12. Thoughts are like arrows. Once released, they strike their mark.  Guard them well or one day you may be your own victim.

 

13.  Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.

 

14. May your life be like a wildflower, growing freely in the beauty and joy of each day.

 

15. Oh Great Spirit who made all races, look kindly upon the whole human family and take away the arrogance and hatred which separates us. (Cherokee prayer)

And if you’re looking for some Holiday reading…

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

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.

 

BLAST FROM THE PAST: Ads from Bygone Years

By Andrea Downing (with apologies for the quality of the photos)

Some time ago, while renovating a Victorian house in the UK, I came upon a bunch of old magazines…very old magazines.  Since then, I’ve encountered and kept a few more because I’m fascinated by the ads and advice and stories in them.  I thought some of you might also enjoy seeing a few of the ads, or even find use for them in an HWR you’re writing—though heaven knows not all of these are appealing. What gets me more than anything is some of the claims, but I also enjoy thinking about how times have changed.

From Petersen’s Magazine of August, 1873, we have the first of a couple of corsets.  Madame Foy claims this one to be a ‘skirt supporter’—I’m not sure how that works.  We also have an ad for the Great Western Gun Works, which will give you an idea of the price of guns during this period. But what amazes me is that Petersen’s was specifically a woman’s magazine—it had patterns to sew the latest fashions and other features directed at women.  Maybe they were thinking of ranching women?

Next is Scribner’s of March, 1878.  There’s this ad directed at the upper crust of society; who else could afford a five-glass landau? At the other end of modes of transport, we have the supposed “World’s ONLY Manufacturer of Wheel Chairs.” In a pre-PC world, there was no hold on how one described disabled people, I note.

Another issue of Petersen’s, this one from August, 1878, has this ad for a truss, looking like something of a cross between the Inquisition tortures and a chastity belt. I guess hernia surgery was not yet developed.

A second issue of Scribner’s, from October 1880, has this delightful ad for a bicycle. Imagine! Riding 1404 miles in 6 days—standing up! My legs ache just thinking of it. And there’s an ad for Vaseline, still with us today, but, look, in those days it made hair grow when nothing else would and was good for pimples, too! But even better is Cocoaine (sic) that prevents hair from falling, softens the hair, soothes irritated scalps and cures dandruff.  Wow. There must’ve been an awful lot of addicts going around with terrific hair.

Over in the UK in April, 1909, in a magazine called Our Home, we see our second corset, the Kosybak.  It had no back lacing or back opening, nor hard, unyielding dangerous busks-it had come to "stay"!  Get it? They don’t tell you how a woman would get into it, but there was a free book which I guess explained everything. Also in this issue was an ad for Valentine’s Extract, which seems to be some extract of walnut for dying hair. And you could get a free bottle to try…

Finally, from Sept. 22, 1917, (during WWI) the Literary Digest shows us that a few products still available today were around then. Although Campbells bought Franco-American in 1915, the logo is still around, though maybe not with a label claiming beef broth is for children and invalids.

Scott tissue is still around (although difficult to find in pandemic times) & hopefully has still ‘never been used before.’

Have a look at The Comptometer, an adding machine they claim is easy enough for a woman to use, thereby saving companies tons of money in paying men! If the men would have been paid $75 a week, one can only imagine what the women were paid.

Genco, a cutlery company, was making razors for the troops, the only ad I spotted  to mention the war.

Did you know there were dishwashers in 1917? No, not the husband of the house; I’m talkin’ electric dishwashers which washed your dishes in five minutes!  My own takes over two hours so maybe they were better then.

And last but certainly not least, we have Lastbestos Roof Tile—fireproof! And as we were later to discover, a whole lot more…

I wonder if in years to come people will think of our current advertisements with the same amazement?

My own HWR does not contain any of these fabulous items, but hopefully you’ll enjoy it just as much! It’s getting some great reviews so why not mosey on over to your favorite site:

  Amazon 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

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

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?