August 8th, 2009

I had no idea how many anti-Earp people were in the world until Thunder Over the Prairie came out. The bulk of the book is about the “most intrepid posse” of the Old West. I spent years researching the material and made sure the book included was a comprehensive bibliography, as well as numerous end-notes, and a foreword by the Director of the Kansas Heritage Center, explaining where the information came from. Even with all that, there are still a handful of people who insist the story is fabricated. The one that is making the biggest noise is very upset about a quote used in the book from an 1881 edition of the Dodge City Globe about Wyatt’s vendetta ride. The report from the paper notes that Earp and his men killed 150 men in that ride. The outraged critic insists I made that up. Without bothering to check the facts for himself or contact the Director of the Kansas Heritage Center himself, he has taken to openly blasting me on a website dedicated to complaining and knocking various authors. Dealing with that individual consumed a big portion of my work day. I passed his complaints on to my editor. His hope is to get the book taken off the shelves. He’s furious that it’s been optioned for a screenplay too. There are those days when writing isn’t everything I dreamed it would be. People who say you lied never have to back it up. They only have to say it. I happen to believe if Wyatt Earp was alive he would have called this guy out. That’s the way they settled things in the Old West. I’m a fan of frontier justice. I’m also a fan of truth. I don’t see frontier justice making a come back, but I’d certainly like to see truth become commonplace. I’ve often wondered what happened to truth. How did it become so unaccepted. I read a quote that explains it better than I ever could. It’s from Joan Beck of the Chicago Tribune. “Lying is commonplace in our society – government, courts, churches, and homes. Sometimes for what may seem the best of reasons, often for personal gain, almost routinely for social or business convenience (?Tell him I’m in a meeting.’) We cannot assume that honesty is a way of life in our country – or the world. The forces of society have subtly squeezed us into new definitions of honest and morality. Absolutes of right and wrong have largely disapproved and have been replaced by a fuzzy, gray fog of inconsistent moral choice.”
Excellent quote! If anyone would stop to contemplate the notion perhaps things would change. But I guess to a lot of people it’s easier just to call someone a liar without having to prove your case. Someone like Earp wouldn’t have bothered to wait for the motive behind the lie to come to light. I like to think he would have stared him down the barrel of a gun and just before he turned the coward’s head into a canoe told him, “You’re a blackguard, a hypocrite, and a stench in the nostrils of honest men.” It’s extreme, I know. Guess you can’t get rid of all the dogs just because one has fleas.
I’m sure I’ll hear from this same flea invested dog when the book about Elizabeth Custer comes out. What else does he have to do?