Over the last ten plus years, I’ve been blessed to see first hand some of the most extraordinary historical western sites, and hold in my hands important frontier artifacts. I’ve stood in the very spot gold was discovered in 1849. I roamed through the inside of the buildings of the famous ghost town in Bodie, California. I was at Little Round Top in Gettysburg and lingered where Pickett charged. I visited Baby Doe Tabor’s cabin in Leadville, Colorado and visited Jesse James’s family farm in Kearney, Missouri. I’ve spent the night at Buffalo Bill Cody’s famous hotel, The Irma, in Cody, Wyoming. I’ve been to Ford’s Theatre and seen the blood soaked pillow where President Abraham Lincoln laid his head after he was shot. I’ve been to Mount Vernon and gazed out over the Potomac. I’ve wandered the streets of Jamestown in Virginia and sat in Mark Twain’s newspaper office in Virginia City, Nevada. I’ve had a sarsaparilla at the Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City, Kansas. I’ve been to Calamity Jane’s gravesite in Deadwood, South Dakota and strolled along main thoroughfare of Tombstone, Arizona. I’ve followed the path the Seventh Cavalry took to the Last Stand and sat on the banks of Donner’s Lake at the base of the Sierra Foothills. I’ve held Bat Masterson’s and Bill Tilghman’s six-shooters, one of Annie Oakley’s outfits of clothing, Mary Graves’s journal, Sitting Bull’s headdress, and George and Elizabeth Custer’s wedding card. It’s been a true adventure and I wouldn’t trade a second of those great memories. This writing career has allowed me to experience many rare opportunities and I’m grateful for all of them. All the joy and incredible memories the job has afforded me still does not erase the image in my mind of my brother in prison. I live everyday with the regret of persuading him to take a plea and say he was guilty of a crime he did not do.

I wasn’t able to attend this year’s Festival of the West program.  My brother and his parents went in my place.  Thought I’d post the article he wrote about the experience.  Enjoy!  Festival of the West Review  By: B. Keith Williams  If you did not make it to the twenty-first Festival of the West this past weekend, you missed a rip-roarin’ good time! The attendance read like a combined “Who’s Who” from both Hollywood and Nashville. Larry Gatlin, Lynn Anderson, Johnny Rodriguez, and Michael Martin Murphey were the musical draws. Celebrities such as Robert Fuller, Jeff Connors, Clint Walker, Ed Faulkner, Julie Ann Ream, Cheryl Rogers-Barnett, and Peter Brown were among many other movie/television personalities.  The western era was also well represented and is kept alive by authors Major and Judy Mitchell from Shalako Press, Chronicles of the Old West’s Dakota and Sunny Livesay, True West’s Bob Boze Bell and Carole Glenn, Sherry Bond, Chris Enss, John Conley, Jeff Hildebrandt, and B. Keith Williams.  History’s Annabella O’Dwyer (Marsha Wats) and Wyatt Earp (.biz) were part of the festivities as well. Ermal “The Duke” Williamson and Paula Williamson, “America’s Yodeling Sweetheart,” performed also.  “We had a fabulous time” according to Ray and Camille Williams. “I never would have guessed in a million years that the Rifleman’s rifle and shirt would be transported in my car! What an honor to have associated with Jeff Connors, Sherry Bond, and Festival of the West’s publicist Happy and Gene Anderson. They are very gracious and personable individuals”. “It was always about the fans my dad said,” quoted Jeff Connors.  According to actor Ed Faulkner, the Festival of the West is one of the better shows he tries to attend each year.  While there may have been some transitional obstacles this year, most attendees seemed positive.  Rollie Stevens and Kathy Meek have both a great love for and desire to see Festival of the West grow. As an author representative for Chris Enss, B. Keith Williams adulated, “Working with Kathy was a pleasure. For the first time, I believe, they had a western authors’ area over which she was responsible. I feel our educational system is neglecting our kids by taking history from the classrooms across the country, and it is important work our authors are doing in keeping this era of history alive. I have probably been many of these characters (Rifleman, Cheyenne, Little Joe, and Lawman) in my own backyard growing up as a little boy.  For more photos and video, see… www.chrisenss.com (courtesy of Ray and Camille Williams and Larry Anger).

On March 20, 1865, George Custer was at White House Landing in Virginia. “My darling,” he wrote his wife at the end of his work day, “we are now resting our horses and obtaining such supplies as are needed after a march of 500 miles. The staff are gathered about the camp fire singing: “It’s a Way we have in the Army,” and “Let every old Bachelor fill up his glass, and drink to the health of this Favorite Lass…. I long for the return of peace. I look forward to our future with earnest hope. Our state may be far below our present one. We may not have the means for enjoyment we now possess, but we shall have enough and to spare. Above all, we shall have each other.” The sentiment would have been much more compelling had he not been involved with other women. Still, it’s a much more romantic letter other post- Civil War letters I’ve come across. One letter in particular stands out that a husband wrote his wife around the same time period: “When you’re away, I’m restless and lonely, wretched, bored, dejected, only – here’s the rub, my darling dear, I feel the same when you are here.” I do think George and Elizabeth loved one another very deeply, but there are times the term is overused. Love has been used to describe everything from how we feel about diapers to the devotion and sacrifice of the Savior. I certainly think it’s too easy to say. And only in rare exceptions does it have staying power. For example, I received an email from a niece a few weeks ago that read, “I love and care about you, Aunt Chris.” Not less than a day later another email arrives from the same niece informing me that she “never wants to hear from me again – ever!” The Elizabeth Custer book will soon be released. I want readers to…dare I say it…love the book. If being in this profession has taught me anything, it’s that people who might hate the book won’t be shy about hiding their feelings. None Wounded, None Missing, All Dead represents a sizeable chunk of my writing life. I loved the opportunity – at the very least I want people to like it. But it’s out of my hands now – a situation I’m never very comfortable with. A wonderful author by the name of Chuck Parsons once shared a quote with me by Michener, it goes “Never complain, never explain, never disdain.” I’m going to try, Chuck.

Pope Paul VI once said, “If you want peace, work for justice.” I want peace and I’ve been working for more than six years for justice. It inches closer everyday…and just like the murderers Earp went after, the outlaws don’t have any idea it’s coming. Some rides to justice are longer than others, but it does come around. The Earp Vendetta Ride, or simply the Earp Vendetta, was a three-week clash from March 20 to April 15, 1882 between personal enemies and federal and local law enforcement agencies in the Arizona Territory. It became romanticized in history as “The Last Charge of Wyatt Earp and His Immortals,” as the men involved earned a reputation that they could not be killed. The vendetta ride was variously known in newspapers of that time as the Earp Vendetta or Arizona War. The vendetta was a result of the tensions leading up to the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881, the attempted murder of Tombstone Marshal Virgil Earp on December 28, and the assassination of United States Deputy Marshal Morgan Earp on March 18, 1882. U.S. Deputy Marshal Wyatt Earp led a federal posse with a warrant for the arrest of “Curly Bill” Brocius. In October 1880, Wyatt had saved Curly Bill from a probable lynching and then testified that his shooting of Marshall Fred White was accidental, saving him from a murder indictment. Now, in March 1881, he was pursuing Curly Bill with the intention to kill him. The Earp posse took no prisoners but killed at least four men between March 20–24, beginning with the shooting of Frank Stilwell and ending with the killing of Curly Bill. During their ride, the Earp federal posse was pursued by a local County Sheriff’s posse consisting of Sheriff Johnny Behan and deputies Phineas Cochise Clanton, Johnny Ringo, and about twenty other Arizona ranchers and outlaws. Johnny Behan deliberately failed to include Pima County Sheriff Bob Paul who had jurisdiction over the Tucson killing of Frank Stillwell for which the sheriff’s posse sought Wyatt Earp and his fellow riders. The Behan posse never engaged the much smaller Earp posse, although it charged Cochise County USD$2593.65 for its expenses (about $58,831 in today’s dollars. The vendetta ride is an example of a jurisdictional dispute and failure of the law enforcement system in the Old West on the frontier. The ride ended April 15 when the Earps and their associates rode out of the Arizona Territory and headed for Colorado. That failure of the law enforcement system didn’t end on the Old West’s frontier. The fight for truth and justice didn’t end there either.

The release of the Elizabeth Custer book is a month away. I’ve been rereading her journal entries and have grown to like her even more than I already had. She was fearless, but she did worry that after she died no one would be able to answer malignant tongues who would defame her husband, George. Living, she could confront them with documentary vindication. After George’s death in 1876, Elizabeth was in high demand to speak at women’s clubs, historical society meetings, etc… She never passed up a chance to defend her husband’s actions and motives in precipitating the last major Indian battle on the frontier. Elizabeth stood up for George for 56 years. After all his critics were either imprisoned or had died off, Elizabeth was still there as his champion. I think her travels and speaking engagements were a sophisticated version of Wyatt Earp’s vendetta ride. Seventy-eight years after Elizabeth’s passing her voice can still be heard telling the world that George was wronged and falsely accused. Good for you, Elizabeth. Justice does come. It may take awhile, but it comes. As the Roman philosopher, Seneca once said, “Injustice never rules forever.” Like Elizabeth, I’m counting on that.