This wasn’t a good day for outlaw Mike Morose back in 1895. The Texas badman was hiding out in Juarez when lawmen lured him back across the border. George Scarborough killed him while resisting arrest. Scarborough was a deputy at the time he gunned Morose down, but he wasn’t necessarily a good guy. He dabbled read more…

I’m heading home after a long book tour.  Montana was beautiful – from the Little Big Horn to Bozeman.  I enjoyed visiting all the locations in between those historic places.  Now comes the hard part, traveling back to California.  I’m currently an airline hostage in a steamy, overcrowded terminal in Salt Lake City, Utah.  When read more…

Many of the criminals in the Old West wanted to eliminate the law.  Their attitude was if there’s no law there’s no crime.  The frontier was a little too wild for my taste in the mid-1860s to late 1890s.  The rights of the outlaw should never supersede the rights of good, decent, hardworking people.  As read more…

I’d planned to be in Colorado this past weekend for the Second Annual Tribute to Western Movie Days.  Books were shipped overnight to the Museum of the West in Montrose and I was sent an itinerary to follow during my visit.  The original True Grit was filmed there and I was looking forward to visiting read more…

On my way to Colorado today.  I won’t be too far from the sanitarium where Doc Holiday died.  I just might have to pay a visit to his grave site.  I noticed the usual suspects using a University of Missiouri server have been monitoring my site again.  Just want to remind them of the last note read more…

No element of America’s historical heritage has inspired more myth and legend that the opening of the American West – an epic of immense proportion.  The wild frontier days might be gone, but the lure of the West lives on in the form of personal freedom, and enduring bond between man and nature, and the read more…

With any luck and a firm understanding of the laws of 1888 as it applies to the Indian Nations, I’ll be finishing the last chapter of the Sam Sixkiller book today.  He was a remarkable man and I’m anxious for the world to know this brave deputy marshal.  There seems to be a theme that read more…

I’m off again today to do another lecture series and signing.  The hardest part of this job is hauling the boxes of books around.  It was on this day in 1892, after back shooting Jesse James, Bob Ford became a saloon keeper in Creede, Colorado.  Ford was shotgunned by Ed Kelly ins a dispute over read more…

If not for the persistent rain and cold, the time at Coloma and Placerville this weekend would have been perfect.  When you’re already feeling low in spirit, the constant rain seems to add to the blues.  So I’ll turn my attention to the west and the men and women who helped shape the frontier and read more…

You know, lately I find myself gripped by an overwhelming desire to smack some people upside the head.  The rude and the inconsiderate need a good beat down.  I’d start first with those people who treat bookstores like libraries.  Why are these individuals allowed to lay in the aisles reading novels without paying for the read more…