Big Steve Long & the Big Lie

Home again and back to work. I’m dividing my day between revising and adding to the book Outlaw Tales of California, revising and adding to the book Hearts West: Mail Order Brides on the Frontier, writing Chapter 2 of the Sam Sixkiller story, and planning the launch for the Elizabeth Custer book due to be released in May 2011. Since I haven’t really slept a full night since 2002, I’m able to cram a lot into a 24 hour period. The researching is so interesting I have a hard time setting it aside anyway. Take for example what I learned happened on this day in 1868. To better support his new fiancé Deputy Marshal Big Steve Long had begun moonlighting as a mugger. He tried to ambush and rob the prospector, Hard Luck Harrison near Laramie, Wyoming. Hard Luck didn’t stay shot very long and when Big Steve stepped from cover Hard Luck shot him. Big Steve had his wound dressed by his fiancé but when she found out how he got himself shot she ratted him out to the vigilantes and they lynched him the next day. It’s so hard to know who to trust sometimes. I read a book during my travels on that very subject. The book is entitled My Lie: A True Story of False Memory by Meredith Maran. Ms. Maran accused her father of molesting her, but it never happened. She confesses that she lied about the abuse in the book and shines a light on the numerous people who make such false accusations and what they get out of it. She was brave to come forward and admit what she’d done. The lives she destroyed because of the lie will never be made whole however. Incalculable harm comes from such a heinous lie. I know what it’s done to me, my family, my life. How distrusting it’s made me of most women. With few exceptions I see most women as conniving as Big Steve’s fiancé. With that in mind it’s a bit ironic that I primarily write about women.