I have been struggling with insomnia since I was 9 years old. It had become manageable until 7 years ago. I thought I had it taken care of, but these past two weeks lead me to believe that was just wishful thinking. It wasn’t until my brother was beaten and raped that I started having these fits of no sleep. I close me eyes and the hurt inflicted on my brother is all I see. I hear him call for help, but I can’t do anything. The dream repeats itself over and over again until finally I wake up and decide to stay awake. I’m exhausted and not thinking clearly. The only thing that keeps me going on at times is the next story, the next book. I love doing research and digging deep into a subject spurs me on. I’m ready for the Dodge City trip and excited about the number of people that will be there. I received a letter yesterday from a gentlemen in Colorado who “loves” the book Howard and I wrote about John Wayne. He was very complementary of how the story of told and was happy to learn that John Wayne was such a wonderful man. It was good to get a letter like that. Letters of praise are far in few in between. It seems only the hate mongers with pens that have been dipped in venom write. The letter from Colorado was a blessing. I’ve been close to giving up on everything and that letter helped lift my spirits. God knows the hurt that continues on. The hard feelings I have for the four that caused such anguish that are still walking around without a care in the world. I wish I were the Duke. He could sleep through any hurt. I can’t and I worry that I ever will again.

The launch for the Elizabeth Custer book is next week. It has arrived rather quickly and my sincere prayer is that those who attend the event will feel like it was worth the trip. I think just getting a chance to see some of Elizabeth Custer’s personal artifacts would be worth it all. She was one of the most inspiring women I have had the pleasure of writing about. About 135 years ago today, Elizabeth was enjoying life at Fort Lincoln, Nebraska. George and the other members of the 7^th Cavalry were camping some distance down the valley from the fort. Elizabeth and George sent letters back and forth to one another via a courier. In one of her letters she writes “The servants are doing very well…we are raising chickens. We have forty-three. So many cats about the garrison keep the rats away. The weather is very hot, but the nights are cool. The lights about the valleys are exquisite.” Rats and the weather, just what you’d expect to find in a letter from home. I’m sure if either one of them had any idea that George would not be around by July the contents of the letter might not have been so mundane. I suppose you’re never really prepared for life as you know it to end so abruptly. Who says goodbye to a friend or loved one after a visit as though you might never see them again? That would be a little odd. In retrospect I wish I had, however odd it might have been. If I had known I’d never see my grandmother on this side again when I left her at the retirement home, I would have taken her back to McDonalds for another cheeseburger and apple pie. We would have sat in the car, had our lunch, and talked about the world as we saw it one last time. If I had known I would have assured my brother that he was respected and loved no matter what lies were said. I would have… But who knew?

I’ve been waiting a long time for justice. Not as long as the U.S. government waited for justice to be done with regards to Osama, but at times it feels like it. I know visitors to this site from Raymore and Lees Summit, Missouri want to know how close they are to having to answer before a court of law about what they did. Things have started towards that goal. It will be slow, but it will happened. If I hadn’t have been so scared and begged my brother to take a plea the outcome might have been different. At this point, nothing short of death will make me give up the fight for Rick. Lies are about to be exposed and everything the bad guys did to my brother and family will be done to them. The prison they made for us will be theirs. The situation reminds me of a scene from the film Wyatt Earp. Just before the confrontation at the OK Corral a question was posed to Earp by Clem Hafford. “Is there gonna be a fight, Wyatt?” Clem asked. “I think there must be,” Wyatt responded. And after Earp’s brothers were wounded and killed Doc asked Wyatt, “What do you want to do? Wyatt said coolly, “Kill them all.” That was an option in the old west – not today. Until the people that have brought about such pain do what’s right, everything they touch is going to fail.

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Over the last year or so I’ve been writing about lawman Sam Sixkiller. Sixkiller was a U.S. Marshal in the Oklahoma territory. While researching that part of the country I’ve come across some other interesting events that happened around there. One of them involved a bootlegger by the name of Ned Christie. On this day in 1885, during an attempt to arrest Christie, U.S. Marshal Dan Maples was killed. Later that same month Ned shot, at different times, two other deputies who tried to arrest him for killing Maples. Ned built himself a strong fortress and survived many bloody encounters with lawmen over the next eight years. There’s no question Ned was a bad guy – not only was he a bootlegger, but he robbed trains and was a horse thief. I don’t know what drove him to a life of crime, but there are times I feel we all just one step away from doing the wrong thing. Righteous anger could prompt me to stand up for my brothers in a matter contradictory to the law. I don’t think I could stop with just overturning the money changers tables. But I don’t have it in me to ever kill someone like Christie did. The fact that my brother is as sick as he is and I’m not allowed to get him the teeth he so desperately needs infuriates me. That’s righteous anger and there’s nothing I can do with this mad I’ve got. I lack the power to do anymore for him than is already begin done. I believe power is the most sought-after, addictive seductive, abused drug there is. I believe it’s the Bible that says, “With great power comes great responsibility.” No, wait, that was Stan Lee in “Spiderman.” I crave power the most in those times when I’m watching my brother slip further and further away from me. I don’t think the desire for power is a bad thing. I’d say it’s encoded into our DNA for a darn good reason. After all, back in the prehistoric days when we humans dwelt in caves and the neighbor’s raptor got off its leash and destroyed your yard and then ate your cave son, you sure as heck needed a big stick. The guns Ned Christie had seem to give him some power. But it was only temporary. The outlaw was eventually gunned down by Deputy Wess Bowman. Bowman shot him in the head and Sam Maples, whose father had been killed by Christie in 1885, emptied his revolver into Christie’s lifeless body. I’d say that’s a powerful way to handle a bad guy. There’s only one with any real power…and that’s God. I pray he uses that power to save Rick.

It has been a rough few days. Lots of heartache and the forecast shows more on the way. When you release a book out into the wild you’ve got to expect that not everyone will like it. I’m prepared for that. Not everyone has to like the same thing. A cowboy friend of mine told me, “If everybody like the same thing they’d all be married to my grandma.” It would be silly to think you aren’t going to get criticized for whatever you do. And sure, he or she is entitled to their opinion, but it’s gotten to the point where people who criticize actually believe their opinion should have an effect, even if it’s only that of bird droppings hitting the driver’s side windshield at sixty miles an hour. Why is it that every single activity in our lives is subject to a mean-spirited critique? Who wants to read the thoughts of some unqualified blowhard, having convinced themselves that their uninformed opinion is somehow relevant, yarble through an insufferably long-winded, vomit-laden tirade about… Oops. I’m not saying there isn’t a place for solid, intelligent, constructive criticism. But when was the last time you read a review of something, a movie, a play, book, that wasn’t laced in venom? Most critics are spiteful cranks, heaping scorn on everything he sees, (expect for their own work) the kind of poison-tongued lard-encased jerk who refuses to review anything he enjoys because his praise mechanism was broken when his father wouldn’t buy him an E-Z Bake over for his tenth birthday. Criticism is hard for anyone to take…at first. When the mad passes you can take a look at what was said and try to change what might be valid. But ultimately you’ve got to follow your own heart no matter what and take what critics say with a fifty-pound bag of salt because at best a critic is just another human being trying to separate the artistic wheat from the Wonder Bread. And after all, I have a lot to be thankful for, with or without criticism and I try to never forget that. I’d trade all I have and everything I’m ever going to have or be if I could save my brother however. What happened was my fault. I never forget that either.

Mae West once said, “Love conquers all things – except poverty and toothache.” I find it interesting that many women who came West between 1851 and 1879 felt the same way. I didn’t realize until I began doing research for Hearts West II: Mail Order Brides of the Old West, that finding love was secondary to finding a partner who could be economically supportive and father your children. Here and there in history you find a mail order bride situation where love successfully existed, but such marriages were novelties, rare enough to become fodder for romantic novels and books entitled Hearts West II: Mail Order Brides of the Old West. It was a business deal – at least that’s how the majority of those relationships started out. There was a close connection between marriage and the price of wheat, beef, pork, beans, corn and other thing which go to make up the main portion of human food during that time as well. According to the Ladies’ Home Journal in November 1876, “as the price of those commodities go up the number of marriages goes down.” Mail order bride or not, cupid didn’t have to work as hard during times of prosperity. How romantic. Not! But I guess that was the whole idea. Marriage then was not based on how “in love” you both were, but on supporting one another in a variety of ways and aiding the continuing of the species. If you’d lost that loving feeling for your spouse in the Old West it didn’t make much difference – that wasn’t why you entered into the union in the first place. Infidelity was high during that period too and acceptable. You married the one you could make the best business deal with and fell in love with someone else. Sounds like a line from the movie Arthur. “Arthur, marry Susan for her millions and have an affair with the nobody,” his grandmother told him. Marriages were much more difficult to get out of in those old days. Perhaps they were so frightened of the vows they didn‘t dare go against them. They are pretty scary. I mean, “We are gathered here to witness the joining of two people…” Joining. Could we come up with a slightly more industrial term, huh? How about, “soldering”? Yeah, have a couple of guys from the machinist union swing by, drop the welder’s masks, and handle that part of the ceremony. You know, it seems like the only two times they pronounce you anything in life is when they pronounce you “man and wife” or “dead on arrival.” To some those two pronoucements are one in the same.

On April 25, 1876, George Custer wrote Elizabeth from New York with bad news. He was caught up in a situation neither saw coming. “My Precious Sunbeam,” his letter began, “I cannot express my amazement, disappointment. I am stopped, ordered to return to Washington. I had obtained my formal discharge…. I had had several interviews with the Managers of the Belknap Board, representing the urgency of my duties at Fort Lincoln, and had finally received a reluctant consent to my departure. Yesterday a Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate brought me a summons to appear before that body on Wednesday next, as witness in the Impeachment of the Ex-Secretary of War.” Belknap was a dishonest man. He had ripped off the government and Custer knew what he had done. Belknap lied about Custer and no one was in George’s corner except Elizabeth. It would take a while for the truth to come out, but in the meantime and George and Elizabeth would suffer. President Grant had appointed Belknap to the post of Secretary of War and refused to believe he would lie about anything. He was wrong. George still paid. Truth never dies, but lives a wretched life. Elizabeth and her husband learned that firsthand, and by the way, so has my brother. The truth in his case is about to come out too. I’ve waited such a long time for this. I’ve got new changes coming to my website in the fall that I’m excited about. If all goes well, one of the new items I’ll be adding to the site will be a western short to promote the books. I’ve always wanted to make a western movie and I think this is the closest I’ll ever come to it. It’s been a dream of mine as far back as I can remember.  I’d die happy just knowing I was able to participate in such a project. 

For several months I’ve been working on a book about an Oklahoma lawman named Sam Sixkiller. He was a fine officer, dedicated, fearless – he kept order in a town that was considered one of the most dangerous in the country at the time. Some of the men he arrested conspired against him – they wanted to kill him. On Christmas Day in 1886 two gunmen opened fire on Sixkiller as he was leaving a store. Sixkiller’s son was in law enforcement at the time his father was killed and wanted to get revenge on the four who planned his death. Friends and family tried to talk Sam Jr. into letting the matter go. They believed the villains who took Sixkiller’s life were too powerful and that public sentiment would be on their side. Sam Jr. responded to the well meaning people around him with a quote from one of Shakespeare’s plays. He said, “And where the offense is, let the great axe fall.” Sam Jr. was as brave as his father. An eye for an eye seemed to work in the Old West. So often I wish I could go back in time to that place. I don’t know if frontier justice helped Sam Jr. deal with the death of his father easier, but I suspect it helped to know that after he got the job done, the bad guys could never hurt anyone else again. “How did I plan this moment?” Sam Jr., asked the question on the villain’s mind as he leveled their guns at them. It took years to track the killers down – so long in fact they assumed there would be no repercussions for their actions. “How did I plan this moment? With pleasure!” Sam Jr. told them before he sent them to meet their maker. One of the men did not die instantly. Sam Jr. stepped over the dead bodies laying about the hotel room where they had gathered and looked down at the outlaw on the floor, grimacing in pain. “I want to be free of you…the way you, obviously, are free of me,” Sam Jr. said before shooting the man in the head. I wonder if that did set him free? After speaking to my brother again last night about the health issues he’s struggling with I wonder the same about myself. I want to be free of the people who hurt Rick…the way they, obviously, are free of us. I don’t believe I will ever be.

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Rolling your own cigarette and smoking was a just a given for the tough lawmen and notorious bad guys of the Old West movies. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood made it look cool, but in my estimation that’s the only place it does look cool. I grew up around a family of smokers. That wonderful legacy was then passed on to my brothers and now my brother’s daughters. Plant a potato get a potato I guess. I don’t blame the film stars for setting the example or the tobacco company for making the product. I personally think tobacco companies are being sued way too much. I admit they’re evil poison-mongers who give other evil poison-mongers a bad name. Yes, they lie about the addictive nature of their products and get rich doing it. But come on, tell the truth, we knew they were lying all along. If you’re saying you didn’t know cigarettes were bad for you, you’re lying through that hole in your trachea. Of course it causes lung cancer. Of course it causes emphysema. IT’S SMOKE! How could you not know smoking is bad for you? Is having teeth the color of caramel corn normal? Is coughing up your lungs one smoldering loogie at a time normal? Here are some signs that you might want to quit smoking: 1. Before lighting up, you wrap a nicotine patch around your cigarette. 2. Your newborn twin sons are named Benson and Hedges. 3. You name each cigarette and have a personal conversation with it while you smoke. 4. You’re at Arlington Cemetery, paying your respects to JFK, and you lean over and light one up off the eternal flame. When I find myself in a room where everyone is smoking, and it gets too intense, you know what I do? I leave the room. My acceptance of smokers is one of the compromise, one of the little negotiations that one must make if one is to live in modern urban society. I agree that John Wayne would have seemed less cool in The Quiet Man or McClintok if he weren’t smoking, but I also agree he would have been around longer if he hadn’t of smoked. Ultimately lung cancer was the only thing that could ever kick the Duke’s butt. And as a fan of the Duke – that’s just sad.