Journal Notes

Dodge city is the backdrop for today’s “It Happened When” segment. Bully Brooks, a petty thief and hard case with a chip on his shoulder, got into a heated debate with Buffalo Hunter, Kirk Jordan. Shots were fired and Henry H. Raymond, another buffalo hunter near by the action witnessed the exchange. According to his diary (a copy of which is on file in the manuscript division of the Kansas Historical Society) Brooks had been shot, but escaped. “Tuesday, March 4, 1873. Beautiful day down in town. Bill Brooks got shot with a needle gun – the ball passing through two barrels of water.” Brooks quickly left town, but he was back a few months later causing more trouble. As annoying as Brooks was at least he had a purpose. I really feel like I’m in a rut with writing. After 10 years of being in this line of work I just thought it would be different. There’s lot of hustle to improve sales. Lots of e-newletter sent out, postcards, calls made to bookstores, advertisement placed, but emails aren’t returned, the phone never rings, and I don’t see sales improving much. I’ve got to think of a big publicity venture. Or perhaps I should just set this aside all together and go full time into private investigation work. Maybe too much bad has happened and I just can’t see beyond that. My brother has surgery in May to relieve the swelling on the brain he received from beatings he endured. Bars of soap shoved in a sock can cause a lot of damage when six or seven men are using them to beat you senseless.

I had some really wonderful teachers throughout my school years, but I question some of the material I had to read. I often wonder if my perpetual sense of impending doom was cased by those Dick and Jane books I read as a kid. What was Dick always running from? And why did he have to be told twice? Maybe I could have handled that sort of thing had I read it as an adult, but I suspect that reading Dick and Jane in my early childhood crippled me emotionally. I can’t put my finger on where it all started to go wrong some days. The Dick and Jane theory is as good as any right now. I think if there hadn’t have been great teachers in my life things would have turned out a lot worse. I wish I had cared more about learning when I was a teenager. In the Old West teachers were allowed to hit students. Some of them even threw things at their students – a book, a stick, a shoe?. I’m glad that isn’t a practice that continued on through time, but I can’t help wondering if that could have helped me. I think if a few of my high school teachers would have thrown something at me I wanted like a really good looking guy it could have improved my receiving skills.

5.0 out of 5 stars A great addition for your bookshelf By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) – See all my reviews

There’s gold in them thar hills, and the women came to get it out! Chris Enss presents some of the finest snapshots of women prospectors of the old west and how they made their mark in history. When reading these marvelous tales of rough and tumble characters it is impossible not to get a feeling how our western states were developed.

There are many illustrations and actual photographs which depict how hard life actually had been for these women. Through the years they not only prospected, they found gold and had the mines to show for it. Side line businesses were started so as to fund their ventures in the hills. We learn about their restaurants, boarding houses, and managing skills. Yet, they gave charity to miners on the skids by giving them free food, bathing, and often staking to search for a new claim. Compassion was really the second name for many of these tough broads, but never cross them like Jamieson did when he shot and killed Charley (Charlotte) Hatfield’s husband. She did a lot of searching for many years until she caught up with him by chance and shot him three times!

Author Chris Enss brings to this compilation of true stories, a keen eye for interesting anecdotes about each of these women of the old west. In 1905 Lillian Malcolm said “The grandest and healthiest life known is this rough pioneer life. And I don’t see why more women are not in the hills.” Early photographs are from many historical societies in the western states and you have to see them to really get this wonderful flavor of seeing a woman swinging a pick or sifting a pan for gold.

Chris has written for television, short subject films, live performances, and the movies. Her professionalism shines and you are easily transported to yesteryear in an old western motif. Past books have included The Doctor Wore Petticoats, The Lady Was a Gambler, Pistol Packin’ Madams, and Outlaw Tales of California. A Beautiful Mine is a recommended exceptional read and a great addition for your bookshelf.

Clark Isaacs
Reviewer

It’s one of those days where the cold, rainy weather mirrors that gloom that permeates your heart and soul. I face this day with hope that things will get better soon. Everyone who loses somebody wants revenge on someone, on God if they can’t find anyone else. But in Africa, in Matobo, the Ku believe that the only way to end grief is to save a life. If someone is murdered or taken from you by a false accusation, a year of mourning ends with a ritual that they call the Drowning Man Trial. There’s an all-night party beside a river. At dawn, the killer is put in a boat. She or he is taken out on the water and they are dropped. They are bound so that can’t swim. The family of the dead or wrong person then has to make a choice. They can let them drown or they can swim out and save them. The Ku believe that if the family lets the person drown, they’ll have justice but spend the rest of their lives in mourning. But if they save them, if they admit that life isn’t always just… that very act can take away their sorrow.

In my never ending quest to increase book sales I’m going to attempt a move into a frightening area – I’m going to move from text e-mail newsletters to video. A camera crew will be at my office on Friday to shoot a series of on-line commercials. Ten years ago I couldn’t have imagine that there would come a day when millions of ordinary people would be creating and uploading homemade videos onto sites like YouTube each month, and this is just the tip of the iceberg! This is not some flash-in-the-pan fad; it is a symbol of the growing clout of online users who expect to get information delivered the way they want it – in video. Much of my day is spent doing the actual marketing of the books I’ve written. The ads that will be produced will be funny and catchy – at least that’s the plan. If all goes well I’ll be sending out video emails by mid-March. I spend the bulk of my day working on promotions and sales for the books I’ve already written. It’s that distasteful part of the business that my authors don’t care to participate. I was naïve enough when I started writing to think that the publisher did the promotions. Not a chance. Little did I know. I’m grateful that I’ve been able to arrange book signings at some incredible Old West sites. Last year I was in Dodge City at the Long Branch Saloon. In the coming months I’ll be in Cody, Wyoming at the Irma Hotel. As and Old West junkie it doesn’t get any better than that. Keep your eye out for the video email – coming soon to a computer near you.

There are days when I am keenly aware that even if my brother lives to be released from federal prison he will never be the same again. A fire has swept through his life and there is nothing left now but the shell of the man that once was. It’s a hurt from which I believe I will never fully recover. I ask God everyday to help. I want to forgive. I cannot understand why it is so impossible for so many to have glossed over the true bad guy in this scenario. John Steinbeck said it best in East of Eden “Just as there are physical monsters,” Steinbeck asks, “can there not be mental monsters born with face and body perfect? If a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce a physical monster, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?” There were a lot of malformed souls in the Old West – for example: On this day in 1878 the Murphy-Dolan faction murdered the benevolent John Tunstall outside of Lincoln New Mexico. A bloody power struggle called the “Lincoln County War: broke out following his death. It’s easy to hear about this crime and instantly think of Billy the Kid’s role in the war…glossing right over the ones that started the mess in the first place.

Hanging on the wall across from my desk are three pictures of the ghost town known as Bodie. I’ve had the pleasure of traveling to Bodie a few times. It’s a magnificent state park in a state of arrested decay. When you’re there you can’t help but imagine what it must have been like more than 150 years ago. You can almost hear the sound of a piano playing and laughter bursting through the swinging doors of the wooden buildings that used to be busy saloons. I always dreamed of being a part of a film that recaptured that time period. I’ve come close, but nothing yet. I guess a lot of people hope to be part of a film – western or otherwise. Everyone wants to write a book, screenplay, or act. With all the tedious, humiliating, stupid ways there are to make a living in this world, why do so many of us choose that. Maybe we didn’t get enough attention as a child, maybe we watched too much television, or maybe someone read one of my books and said, “Come on, she writes books, how hard can it be?” It seems like acting would be a constant exercise in humiliation. A “how low can you go” limbo game where it helps to have a double-jointed ego because it’s going to be bent, stretched, and forced into positions a lanky yoga instructor on Ambien couldn’t manage. You go to Hollywood to ply your craft and you get a job waiting tables at Der Wienerschnitzel in Culver City so you can network with Sony interns as they ask you to refill the relish tub. I should be content with just being able to write about people from the Old West because it seems to make it as a screenwriter or a motion picture actor you have to want it more than you want anything else in life and I just don’t want anything like that. Not true?I want my brother to live and come home, but outside of that?. Actors are always talking about their motivation, that is, what makes their character do the things he does. I think at this point and time in my life any plum role I would get I would use a special acting technique for my motivation that I call the check method. See, in every one of my movies, my “character” would know that when filming was done, I would get a big check. I know it’s so much more than that. It’s a craft, an art. You can’t watch Phillip Seymour Hoffman or read anything Larry McMurtry writes and not know that. If nothing else, most aspiring entertainers live in the “now.” For most aspiring entertainers, it goes something like this: “Now I’m broke. Now I’m still broke. Now I’m going to sell my blood so I can buy some ramen noodles.”

I had the pleasure of doing another interview today with Mike Thomas at KWRE in Warrenton, MO. His program is entitled Livewire and I always enjoy being a phone-in guest on the broadcast. He’s read the book before we start and can ask pointed questions. I like that in an interviewer. Valentine’s Day is Sunday and one of my happier childhood memories is selecting just the right v-day card for the boy in class I liked. The card had to convey my true feelings without being too forward. In 2nd grade I selected a card with a little girl shaking hands with her puppy. The message read, “I paws to tell you Happy Valentine’s Day.” Oh, I wish Dale Thoeni knew how I agonized over that card. Romance wasn’t blooming in downtown El Paso, Texas on this day in 1882 when two local characters got into an arguement over an actress. Doc Cummings was drunk and mouthing off to Jim Manning at a variety show. It came to a shoot out and Doc was killed. I received some information from one of the doctors who has been helping with the research of the book I’m working on about my brother. It’s interesting and very sad. In Montana v. Harts (State of Montana v. Harts, 1993), the State’s child protective services workers had performed the first several evaluations of two children, ages 3 and 5, who had alleged sexual abuse by their great-grandparents, ages 78 and 81, who had no documented history of previous criminal behavior or of sexually inappropriate behavior. Child protective services workers and police rewarded the children with praise when they provided affirmative responses to their questions. When one child reported something that the other could not at first remember, pressure applied until the child could remember it. No effort was made to verify the physical possibility or impossibility of the allegations. The children were sent to a therapist who insisted that the children elaborate on this abuse by asking them to “draw a picture of your rectum” and “draw a picture of how you feel about Pa’s genitals.” These drawings were submitted to the county attorney over the next two years as evidence of abuse. Other grossly inappropriate “therapeutic techniques” were also used to extract confirmation from the children that bizarre and violent sexual abuse had been perpetrated against them. The 5-year-old boy was put into treatment sessions with a 9-year-old boy who was a confirmed sexual abuse victim. The therapist typically saw the children in her home for up to 6 hours at a time. The therapist forbade anyone to talk to the children, including their grandparents, unless they promised not to express any doubt as to the children’s allegations, or unless the therapist was present. When the children tried to say that their reports were “just dreams” or had never been true, these statements were discounted. The therapist asked the children to draw something and when they did not, she produced the drawing, labeled it as the child’s, and sent it to the county attorney. The therapist collected crime victim’s compensation funds for the children’s treatment, long before an unbiased investigation was performed, reinforcing the necessity from the therapist’s perspective that the crime be confirmed even if it had not occurred. Through disorderly and biased procedures, these children were induced, albeit unintentionally, to report ever more heinous acts of sexual abuse against them. Deposition testimony indicated that upon re-evaluation the children’s statements did not meet credibility criteria when the procedure, “Statement Validity Analysis” (Raskin & Esplin, 1991) was applied. Re-evaluation also indicated that initial evaluation procedures had been faulty. The county attorney filed a brief to quash this challenging testimony at trial, maintaining that SVA and the other procedures described above were inadmissible as expert testimony due to major disagreements and lack of consensus among experts in the field. A review and analysis of the literature identified eight core similarities among the major approaches to such evaluations. Expert testimony was offered that these eight similarities, used as the foundation for the investigation of the sex abuse allegations, do meet evidence admissibility requirements. The judge allowed the challenged testimony, ruling that investigative procedures utilizing these eight core similarities were scientifically acceptable and admissible as evidence. Prior to trial a Statement Validity Analysis was performed enabling further expert testimony to the effect that the children probably had not been abused, but had been led to believe that they were, based on suggestive, coercive, and biased investigative and therapeutic conduct. The Judge ultimately ruled that the alleged sexual offenders were “not guilty.”

I’m losing another loved one and there’s nothing I can do but watch them fade away. There’s a golden hawk outside my window this morning, screeching as she scans the ground below. The screeching mirrors the hurt I’m feeling over the impending loss. I pray and I believe in the power of prayer, but I’m also very stubborn. I’ve never been able to “let go and let God” as the saying goes. I always have to see how I can fix it first. I’ve tried, but years of hurt and struggle have broken the heart and spirit of this person and now their heart is physically giving out on them. And just like watching my brother slowly die, I have a front row seat to this ending as well. Every morning before I beginning writing I spend some time in a Bible study and prayer. I don’t want to be like the character in the Ox-Bow Incident, that great western film about an angry mob that rushed to judgment. I want to be forgiving because I’ve been forgiven, but some days that’s a tall order. The Bible study generally leaves out how difficult it is to live up to that. I’ve reached out to someone I have been struggling with forgiving and we’ve spoken a couple of times. Healing is going to take a while for me, but it’s a start. I would like to have a permanent place in someone’s heart. A place that could not be removed no matter what tragedy or hardship occurs. In recent months I’ve been told by my biological father and my aunt to never bother contacting them again. I don’t like being so disposable. That ability to consistently live the love you declare you have for someone is what I admire in Elizabeth Custer and why it’s a joy to write about her everyday. I’m at the part in the book I’m writing where Elizabeth faces Monahseetah for the first time. Monahseetah is an Indian woman George is rumored to be romantically involved. Elizabeth doesn’t rush to judgment after she hears the rumor. She spends time with George and the other woman before she forms her opinion. And even when the rumors seem to have a glimmer of truth, she stays with her husband. She stays with him because she made a promise that she would and Elizabeth Custer is as good as her word. So here I sit. The work day has begun the hawk continues to screech. With all that’s going on it’s what I would do right now if it were socially acceptable.

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating history of 15 women gamblers of the American Wild West., February 4, 2010
By Cathy G. Cole (Phoenix, AZ USA) – First Line: An attractive, statuesque woman with golden blonde curls piled high on top of her head sat behind a large table in the back of the Pacific Club Gambling Parlor in San Francisco, California.

There’s something about the ching of spurs, the slap of the bat-wing doors of a saloon, and the alluring smile of a beautiful faro dealer. They are some of the most common sounds and sights that come to mind when people think of the Wild West. Author Chris Enss provides names and histories to fifteen of these pretty gambling faces, and it’s a pleasure to get to know them all.

Alice Ivers (“Poker Alice”) was in the gambling profession for more than sixty years. She died broke at the age of seventy-nine. “I gambled away fortunes,” she once told a friend, “but I had a ball doing it.” She also never sat down at the table without her gun.

The right face, the right name, and the right personality meant added business for gambling houses, and the very best of these ladies could rake in thousands of dollars. (Just ask Doc Holliday who once lost $30,000 to Lottie Deno.)

Speaking of Lottie Deno, many historians claim that the character of Laura Denbo in the movie Gunfight at the OK Corral and the character of Miss Kitty in Gunsmoke are based on her.

Although there are many instances in these ladies’ lives that provoke laughter, it wasn’t all fun and games. When large sums of money, alcohol, quick-tempered men and pretty women are all in one place, abuse, death and tragedy are frequent visitors.

Enss provides just enough biography, history and photography to make readers want to do their own research and learn more. I’ve walked down Allen Street. I’ve walked past the OK Corral, and I’ve seen the gallows at the Courthouse in Tombstone, Arizona. I’ve heard the rustle of skirts, the ching of spurs, the shouts of laughter, and the slap of those bat-wing doors when I strolled past Big Nose Kate’s Saloon. But it’s only now that books like Chris Enss’ The Lady Was a Gambler are being written that I’m getting a real feel for the people who lived in these legendary towns.

If you like to read books about the history of the Old West and about women’s history, you’ll want to read The Lady Was a Gambler. The only real problem I had with this book was that I would’ve enjoyed an extra 200 pages!