Journal Notes

I wrote a children’s book a few years ago entitled Cowboy True’s Christmas Adventure.  The proceeds from the sales of the book have gone to benefit the Prison Fellowship Ministry.  I like to share five review copies with readers at this time of the year. If you’d like a free copy of the holiday title drop me a line and I’ll send it out as soon as possible. Merry Christmas!

I have spent the last three days working on a revised and updated version of the book Outlaw Tales of California. Specifically, I have been writing about a murderer named James Gilbert Jenkins. Raised in Gentry County, Missouri, his early childhood could only be described as idyllic. When Jenkins was 9 years-old, however a man named John Forbes approached his father about hiring the boy to race horses for him. Jenkins was going to be traveling with the stranger and caring for his stable of thoroughbreds in between races. In exchange for his work, he was to receive a quality education, $500, a horse of his own and a saddle. James’s father agreed to let him go off with Forbes. Forbes was not what he claimed to be. He was a conman. He had only one racehorse and made his living primarily as a highwaymen and thief. Jenkins’s education consisted of learning how to rob and kill. By the time he was 30 he had murdered 18 people. The law finally caught up with him and he was found guilty of his crimes and sent to the gallows. Days before his execution he wrote a short book about his life. He wanted to warn people about what could happen if they weren’t law-abiding citizens. He took full responsibility for his behavior, but sited the bitterness he felt over his father sending him away as the initial motivation for his crimes. Bitterness is such a destructive emotion. I have been swimming in bitterness for years now and it has taken its toll. It makes you feel empty and angry. The moment I started hating the cowards that lied about my brother I became a slave. Bitterness is rooted in depression, anxiety and destroys relationships. Bitterness is worse than disappointment. It can destroy any possibility of human relationships to continue. I’ve even became bitter toward God. I’m afraid that God will not forgive me for having such strong feelings of bitterness. I know what the Bible says about forgiving others but ironically, I’m too bitter to do it! It’s not fair what these people have had done to my brother, my parents, and myself. I do not doubt God is with me. I pray and pray, but I don’t seem to find any release though. Perhaps that’s what James Gilbert Jenkins was struggling with throughout his life. He admitted his wrongs before he was hung. He told the executioner that he was “willing to die in such way that my doom may benefit others.” Jenkins added, “I had rather die than go out into the world again with my character formed in bitterness as it is.” Before Jenkins was hung, his feet and hands were tied. The trap sprung at seven minutes past three. The pulsation of the heart stopped in thirteen and a half minutes, and in twenty minutes, the body was lowered into the coffin. Bitterness is fatal.

The SASS Convention was truly a one of a kind experience. While on the convention floor I strolled through an array of western shops, watched a few shooting exhibitions, sat in on a lecture about Tombstone, and enjoyed a great concert by Riders in the Sky. From what I understand, attendance was off for the year due in large part to the economy. I hope the organization will thrive and the heritage of the old west continues to be preserved. Sometimes I think the whole notion of the American Cowboy is fading into the sunset. All was going well on the trip until I received news that the cowards responsible for the nightmare my brother and family are living, are trying to invent new charges. Not only is that pathetic, but it will not work. Too many people in authority are on to them now. They are scared, diseased rats scratching and clawing in a desperate attempt to free them from the fatal trap they themselves created. Like the great western gunfighters I revere, I’m ready for the battle. Whether Rick is dead or alive, I will serve as my brother’s champion and I will never stop! Like Wyatt Earp on his vendetta ride, I will avenge my brother. The rotten excuses for human beings involved in this affair have called down the thunder. There will be consequences. I’m heading straight for them and hell is riding with me.

I’m off to Las Vegas tomorrow to speak to the attendees at the Single Action Shooters Society Convention at the Riviera Hotel. The topic of speech is 10 Loves Lessons Learned by Women of the Old West. I’m looking forward to being surrounded by people who love the Old West. I need the distraction at this time too. The holidays are wonderful, but I can’t help but think a little more about my brother and his situation. The injustice that was done to him and the sadness that continues on is overwhelming. I’ve been praying for years that things would change, but it seems to just get worse. The unanswered prayers and lack of hope have left me empty and more bitter than I ever thought possible. I feel like I’m drowning and the only thing keeping me afloat are the books I’m working on about the people who ventured over the plains to parts unknown. Wish I had a horse and thousands of miles to ride – I’d grab a hunk of mane, sink some spur, and hurry off into the sunset.

The more time I spend researching the lives of the women who dared to venture west in the mid 1850s, the more I realize that some of life’s best lessons came from those brave souls. For example, Tamsen Donner, wife of the leader of the fatal expedition over the Sierra Mountains learned that one should “never take no shortcuts and hurry along as fast as you can.” Sharpshooter and entertainer, Annie Oakley learned to “aim at a high mark and you will hit it. No, not the first time, not the second time and maybe not the third. But keep on aiming and keep on shooting for only practice will make you perfect. Finally you’ll hit the bull’s-eye of success.” Actress and professional beauty Lillie Langtry learned that, “Anyone who limits her vision to memories of yesterday is already dead.” I admire the aforementioned ladies and appreciate the lessons learned, but feel certain I wouldn’t have such lofty sentiments to offer after attempting to blaze a trail across uncharted territories. I don’t think I would have made it as far as the Rocky Mountains without crying. And I definitely wouldn’t have had any inspirational lessons to offer. I don’t care much for the great outdoors and I require modern plumbing. That’s hardly the quote the U.S. government could have used to persuade people to travel beyond Independence, Missouri. Just getting to a wagon train stop would have proved a challenge for me – I have a hard time trying to navigate my way around the web. Just when did all this computer stuff happen anyway? You know, one day I was playing Pong, the next thing I know Wes, the gas meter guy with the eye patch, has an uplink to satellite on his tool belt. But I digress… I think the best lesson offered by a frontier woman came from entertainer Klondike Kate Rockwell who said, “the quickest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it back in your pocket.”

The holiday season seems to have arrived with a fury. It snuck up on me while I was working on a massive church event. For the last several weeks I’ve been working on the Christmas in Bethlehem program at church. We transform the interior of the building to look like Bethlehem during the time Christ is born and then conduct tours through the city. It’s a worthy project, but an exhausting one. This will be my last year heading up CIB. After eight years of directing and writing the program I am going to turn the reigns over to someone else. I’m going to concentrate on writing and promoting the books I’ve penned and my brother. I want to make sure the last bit of time he has is as comfortable as possible. I also want to pursue a broader range of topics to write about. I hope to have a contract for my first fiction novel within the next 6 months and there is a distinct possibility that the various books I’ve written about women of the Old West will become a documentary series. I’m looking forward to change and making things right. The new year will include a great deal more research travel and learning more about Parkinsons and how to best care for my brother. I’ll be challenging the adoption of two of the three individuals that hurt my brother and the paternity of the third. Vengeance is on the way along with a library of new work.

Updating my site proved to have been impossible this past week with work and holiday company. Over the Thanksgiving holiday a few poems were brought to my attention. I suppose they might have been a bit more tolerable had they been about some Old West subject matter, but alas, that was not the case. I don’t care much for poetry. Much like the poet’s work I read this weekend, I find it forced and disingenuous. Poetry in its most virgin sense, has nothing but attention as its defense. It cannot escape its unnatural flow,
Crammed inside a box by some conflicted foe. Basically, what I’m saying is I don’t like it because it’s not natural. At the first attempt at making something ‘rhyme’, it loses its originality. Try as you will, it will never be pure. I have seen poetry that doesn’t rhyme and I guess that may be an exception to the rule. I consider an uninhibited flow of information from one’s mind natural. Since the brain doesn’t inherently rhyme or other actions that define poetry (loosely or strictly), then it isn’t natural in the sense I mean. It’s edited to fit poetry’s acceptable standards… ie, ‘made into poetry’. I think there should be some word that refers to simple thoughts. Philosophy? I’m not a fan – too much vague bull. Just thoughts not meant to be wisdom, or intellectual, or anything… just… well, poetic writing that is not constrained by any rules. I prefer gifted screenwriting to traditional poetry. Done well, screenwriting has the ability to say everything in just a few short words. Consider the dialogue from The Unforgiven. The scene involves Billy Munny’s conversation with The Kid shortly after they’ve taken a life. MUNNY It’s a hell of a thing, ain’t it, killin’ a man. You take everythin’ he’s got… an’ everythin’ he’s ever gonna have… THE KID (trying to pull him- self together) Well, I gu-guess they had it… comin’. MUNNY We all got it comin’, Kid. That’s poetry to me. A message conveyed in simple, but elegant terms. Another one of those simple, but elegant pieces came from The Outlaw Josey Wales. JOSEY Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. ‘Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That’s just the way it is. Words to live by indeed and just what I intend to do.

Not much work got done this past week. My parents are here visiting and my attention has been elsewhere. With the exception of making corrections to the revised version of the Libbie Custer book and making all the final arrangements for the Christmas in Bethlehem project, I’ve accomplished little. Hope to spend some time today researching the next few books I’ll be writing. Two new westerns ride into theatres this month, True Grit and Cowboys and Aliens. Both look like quality pictures, but how can you go wrong with a western? Would that I could keep my mind strictly on the Old West, but my brother’s situation continues to grieve my heart. I’m sad all the time it seems. I have to believe there is a purpose for all this pain. I have to believe that things will get better someday. I have to believe that or there is no use being here at all. Hopefully, I’ll be back soon with more information about the Single Action Shooters Convention in Vegas next month and interesting tidbits about women outlaws from the heartland of the country.

I’ve been doing a lot of research this past week in preparation for updating the book Hearts West: True Stories of Mail Order Brides. I’ve come across some truly moving correspondence between couples who believed they would never see their loved ones again. Whether a cholera outbreak had overtaken the wagon train carrying a future spouse to their beloved, or lack of water threatened their passage over the Salt Lake desert, the last words they wrote to their betrothed was about love. In all the years I’ve been doing research I’ve never come across anyone who left a letter of hate. I don’t believe anyone has that thought in mind as the end draws near. Love is the prevailing sentiment. I’d like to hope that for myself, but believe that would be folly. My parents spent what might be the last time with my brother today. My mother reports that his tremors are out of control and that he struggles to keep his head from shaking violently. Parkinson’s is the runaway train on course to collide with an early, painful grave. Rick will go, but not before he suffers more. In these final times I don’t have love on my mind. It’s hate. It’s bitterness and angst and a desire to track down the bad guys and make them pay. I feel like the Charles Bronson character in Once Upon a Time in the West. I will only rest once I see the bad guy fall from grace, lose everything, and be fully exposed to the world. And then, as they cry out for mercy, and dare to ask how this could happen to them, I will be there to remind them and watch the murderers downfall. I want to see their faces filled with the recognition that they have been found out. No thoughts of love from them or for them will be issued – only signs of relief that evil has passed. Rick didn’t deserve this. My mom didn’t deserve this heartache. I can’t live without somehow making it right. And as Bronson promised Fonda, making it right will only come at the point of dying.