Journal Notes

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.

?

?

?

?

?

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.

“Dyin’ ain’t much of a livin, boy…”

* * *

“I always heard there was three kinds of suns in Kansas: sunshine, sunflowers and… sons of bitches.”

* * *

“You promised.”

“When a man is a killer, arsonist, cheat and a coward, it’s hardly surprising if he turns out to be a liar, as well.”

* * *

“Be careful… you’re a man who makes people afraid, and that’s dangerous.”

“Well, it’s what people know about themselves inside that makes’em afraid.”

* * *

“It’s a hell of a thing, killin’ a man. Take away all he’s got, and all he’s ever gunna have.”

* * *

“You may not know this but… there’s things that gnaw at a man worse than dyin.”

* * *

“We come for justice, not vengeance. Now them’s two different things.”

“Not today they ain’t.”

My feeling exactly, Mr. Costner.  Like I said, if only this were the Old Wes.

?

While acts of violence against employers by ex-employees is tragic, it is not new. For example, on April 17, 1881, a drunken Bill Johnson attempted to assassinate city marshal Dallas Stoudenmire with a shotgun in El Paso, TX. Johnson’s blast missed completely because he was stewed as an owl. Stoudenmire and his brother-in-law, Doc Cummings, returned fire hitting Johnson eight times. He died on the spot. Johnson was former marshal Stoudenmire’s deputy. He was sore about the rough treatment he got when Stoudenmire fired him and took away his keys to the jail. I think it’s natural to wonder what motivates an individual to act in this manner. You can’t help trying to noodle it through. There’s no excuse for it, but those that feel harshly persecuted act irrationally. The mind is a fragile thing and people behave badly. Some are just crazy and others are just evil. The kind of evil the main character in the movie the Bad Seed displayed. The kind of evil that pretends they’re the victim. I know plenty of really bad people who have gone to great extreme to show themselves as victims. Somewhere along the line society took the wrong fork in the blame road and decided to give these nut jobs (who are no different than Johnson) the attention they so desperately longed for in the first place. If I were U.S. Marshal Sam Sixkiller, the great lawman I’m writing about who died in 1886, you could put those so-called victims down and go across the street for a cup of Joe. Much as I wish it were at times life isn’t an Eastwood picture. Over the last seven years it’s more like Planet of the Apes and I’m Heston walking up in the field and seeing the chimp on top of the pony.

How can a day be anything but great when you start it out having a conversation with an honest to goodness cowboy? Brent Harris, a true Dodge City, Kansas cowboy, has been a real lifesaver in his efforts to make the launch of the Elizabeth Custer book next month in Dodge go as smoothly as possible. Author Dave McCumber once wrote, “Cowboys are heroes, but not of the Hollywood variety. Their heroism comes in small portions. John Wayne may have saved the stampeding heard in Red River, but in real life the herd is saved one calf at a time.” Thanks, Brent. The first bit of feedback I’ve received about the Elizabeth Custer book has been positive. I don’t think the happiness that response leaves me with will continue however. I keep waiting for someone to come along and bash me with a bad review. I feel like Robert Duvall’s character in Tender Mercies. I don’t trust happiness much. Never have. Never will. No matter what goes on, my thoughts are always drawn back to my brother. You think your heart would drown in the sadness of it all, but it keeps right on going. It doesn’t kill you. I wish it would. Until then, I’ll keep working on the Sam Sixkiller book. He was one of the toughest lawman I’ve ever had the pleasure to write about. He didn’t take grief from anyone and that fact made him one of Judge Isaac Parker’s favorite Deputy US Marshalls. Judge Parker was known as the Hanging Judge. He once hung eight convicted felons at the same time. In his zeal to rid the Indian territory of outlaws he worked continually to keep order and send a message to future offenders. Parker died at the age of 57 from exhaustion and complications from diabetes. Too bad he’s not around today. I’ve know a few criminals I’d like to see in his court. Capitol punishment may not wholly work as a deterrent for future bad guys, but it sure made a lasting impression on the offenders the Judge sentenced to die for their misdeeds. They had it coming…so many do.

This is the week!  The week the Elizabeth Custer book is officially released.  I want it to do well, but it’s like sending your child out into the world to possibly be ridiculed, or worse yet, told they’re ugly and of no value.  The situation reminds me of a time in my life when I personally believed I was ugly and had no value.  Years from now I might be able to speak about the circumstances a bit more in depth, but for now I’ll simply note that at that time I struggled with the notion of taking my own life.  I probably would have if not for the kindness and influence of a few strong women in my sphere of influence, one of which oddly enough was my ex mother-in-law.  She paid attention to me, was interested in the things I was interested in, she helped me do my laundry, gave me a beautiful dress, and was generally decent.  She seemed to see something in me I didn’t at the time and it gave me hope.  Without being too overly dramatic, I believe God sent an angel to help get me through to the next station in life.  I loved and admired her and although I am no longer a part of her family, the good she did influences me today.  It would be nice to see her again and tell her face to face what an impact she had.  For that reason alone I do not regret my first marriage.  I’ll never forget how she helped stand me on my feet again.  Hope the experience of knowing me wasn’t a totally loss for her.  I guess that’s what I hope for readers of the Custer book – that it’s not a totally loss for them.  If it is I don’t think I want to know.  My ex mother-in-law isn’t around to help make it all better.  Which would be a little weird now – not to mention hard to explain.  Anyway,  happy reading.

While on the phone late yesterday with Sam Sixkiller’s great, great grandson (Sixkiller was a famous Native American lawman and the subject of my next book)  I received a call from the Federal Prison.  No matter how much I want to put out of my mind, for just a little while, the thought that my brother is locked up and fading away, I just can’t.  I regret so much making him take a plea.  I know the bad guys are destined to get theirs, but in those moments when I’m forced to deal with it again and again,  it couldn’t come soon enough.  The age old struggle between being bitter and stopping to say a prayer for the lost fiends rears it’s ugly head.  After Sam Sixkiller was murdered on Christmas Eve 1886, his sons set out to make the culprits pay for their deeds.  They fired so many bullets into the men who gunned down their father the outlaws were nearly cut into.  Frontier Justice is long since gone, if it weren’t I promise a posse would have been organized to take out the Dodger’s fans who recently beat the man wearing a Giant’s jersey into a coma.  My Pastor recently asked me if I thought the three main players involved with helping to send a decent man to an early grave were Christians.  I told him that I thought they were.  He responded with, “How can they be?  Saved people don’t tell horrible lies as they have.  Saved people don’t act like that.”  He’s right.  I guess I just assumed because they went to church they were saved.  Funny, what comes to mind right now is something Harry Truman said about Richard Nixon.  “I don’t think the son of a b___ knows the difference between telling the truth and lying.”  I will pray for those lost souls, because God asked me to.  And when it all comes crashing down around them, and it will, I’ll pray even more.  My heart will  follow…that’s my prayer too.  In the meantime, the Elizabeth Custer book is out now a bit earlier than originally planned.  It’s a handsome book and I’m looking forward to traveling around with the title and telling Libbie’s story.  She was no stranger to lies herself.  She used to say, “Some people handle the truth carelessly; others never touch it at all.”  I think that sums it up perfectly.

In April 1865, the Rebels had surrendered to the Yankees, thus ending the Civil War.  George Custer arrived on the other side of the war a hero.  His actions at the Battle of the 1st Bull Run and subsequent heroic efforts helped bring about victory for the North.  Shortly after the official signing of the South’s declaration of surrender Major General Phil Sheridan sent Elizabeth Custer a gift along with a note of explanation.  It read, “My dear Madam – I respectfully present to you the small writing table on which the conditions for the surrender of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia were written by Lt. General Grant – and permit me to say, Madam, that there is scarecely an individual in our service who has contributed more to bring this about than your gallant husband.”   Regardless of what happened at the Battle of Little Bighorn, Elizabeth never forgot how George fought in the Civil War.  I don’t quite understand why Phil Sheridan thought the desk was his to give away.  The articles of surrender were signed in a private home and none of the items in the home belonged to the Major General.  By I digress…Elizabeth was loyal to George throughout the 12 years of their marriage and the 57 years after his passing.  Who doesn’t hope for such devotion from a spouse, a parent, their children, a  friend?   I had the pleasure of being a part of two radio broadcasts yesterday.  In both the interviews with KNCO and Capital Public Radio, I spoke about Elizabeth’s loyalty.  There’s no question in my mind her devotion made George the man he was.  I suppose after so many years of defending him and building him up to everyone who asked Elizabeth about her famous husband, she might have forgotten the real George (with all his flaws – and he had them) and lost herself in the myth of Custer.  Sometimes a myth is better than the real thing.  You rest easier believing your spouse never really cheated on you, your favorite actor pines only for you and isn’t tyring to match Marlon Brando’s weight before he dies, and your children would never tell such a horrible lie it lands you in prison and contributes to your suffering and early demise.  Elizabeth never remarried after George was killed at the Last Stand.  No one could ever measure up to the image of the Boy General she presented to the public.  Maybe myth is the way to go.

Words and thoughts.  They bounce around inside my head, with only a few making the transition into real life.  The rest are sentenced to stay in the world of fantasy.  I’m not where I imagined I’d be at almost 50 years old.  It’s taking me longer to get where I wantto be because of life’s hardships.  I’m not complaining.  It just is.  I have serious doubts I’ll ever get there now.  It was while I was mulling over the thought that I’m never going to be making western films like Dale Evans did, that I took myself to the mall and wandered over to the Lancome counter.  I was intrigued by the giant sign advertising a special cream that could eliminate dark circles and bags under the eyes.  I asked the tall, blonde, 19 year-old stick-figure behind the counter about the item and she was more than eager to show me the miracle cream.  She admitted that it was a product she used all the time.  That was aggrevating in an of itself – 19 year-old women do not have dark circles or bags under theireyes!  And I’ll thank you to get off my television and stop pretending you do so I’ll buy your cream!  While the teenager applied the cream to my face she asked me if I ever thought of darkening my eyebrows.  “It would take 15 years off your looks,” she announced proudly.  “Fifteen years?”  I asked increduously.  “How bad do I look?”  Of course I bought the cream – which was probably the whole idea, but I couldn’t take the chance.  I’ve been applying it everyday and I swear I’ve seen no change.  I could have sworn it was working in the store.  It was probably just the mirror.  False reflection I think they call it.  I then took myself to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch.  I was standing with a group of 20 somethings waiting to be seated when the hostess, yet another stick-figure, said, “How nice.  A day out with grandma.”  A quick glance at the faces around me made me realize she was referring to me.  The 20 somethings were suppose to be my grandchildren!  I ran back to the Lancome counter and purchased a variety of items that promised to help me look and feel younger.  Items that would make me feel like the hands of time are turning backwards.  I realize 50 isn’t old, but recent events make me feel old.   Unrealized dreams have played their part as well.  Some people refer to the age of 50 as maturing.  But, like calling green beans haricots verts a l’anglaise, the difference is academic.   How in the world did I get so old so young?  Where is the wisdom and character I expected to acquire by this time?  Where, for that matter, is the next egg I should have salted away and the portfolio stocks I’d planned to secure.  Actually, I know the answer to that one.  Don’t let anyone tell you that inmates in federal prison are cared for by the system.  Not true.  Anyway…as for books like Life Begins at Fifty, they’re comforting to read, but they’re about as close to the truth as the eye cream claim.  You don’t see any book titled It’s Fun to be Twenty because everyone already knows that.  And who’d buy them?  Twenty-somethings are evidently taking their grandmothers out to lunch, not sitting at home reading about how to have fun.  Oh, well.   If anybody needs me I’ll be sopping gently into the samples of anti-wrinkle cream the Lancome lady gave me.  “Nature needs a big lift sometimes,” she told me as she frowned and tossed the cream into my bag.