Book clubs are great when they bring to your attention books you’d never otherwise have heard of or read. My Siblings’ Book Club (which admittedly now has more than just my 3 blood-siblings) rarely lets me down with the titles suggested, and this century-old publication was a great find.
I love short stories, and while Westerns aren’t generally my cup ‘ Joe, history is. These short stories originally provided an America overrun by expansion and “technology” with a look at the good ol’ days of cattle rustling in the Western territories, which even in the 1920s was considered a forgotten era. Famous painter and illustrator Charles M. Russel (who, according to Will Rodgers’ awesome introduction, was no educated city-dweller himself) delivers 43 snippets of prairie life through the mouthpieces of Rawhide Rawlins and others in the old vernacular of their day. For many of the stories, you just plain feel present as you listen to these retellings of experiences (factual and non, I figure) with Injuns and buffalo, cattle and the plains.
It’s the vernacular that got me. Sometimes, I felt lost—I’ve never seen someone overuse apostrophes as much as Charles M. Russel!—but once I got the hang of his flow, I felt right at home and enjoyed the stories, some humorous some not. I recall once long ago giving up on Rudyard Kipling’s classic, Captains Courageous, simply because I couldn’t stand the write-as-they-speak approach. This gives me a new understanding of its benefits, so I might have to give that short novel another go.
This book is broken up into 4 parts, which will run my headings below. I like to comment on every story whenever I read a short-story collection, so these are my just-read thoughts, and I’m sorry if a few contain spoilers—though I honestly don’t think one can really spoil the ending to something that’s been in publication for nearly 100 years.
Part 1: Old West
1. “The Story of the Cowpuncher” – In this opening story, Rawhide Rawlins describes the getup of old-time cowboys, both those east and west of the Rockies. He then shares the experience of one who made $1500 gambling and lost it all quickly as a foreigner in Chicago. Although Russel was an illustrator whose stories always came with beautiful prints, I think his descriptions here are just as clear as his drawings, to give us a real sense of how the old cowmen actually looked and dressed.
2. “A Gift Horse” – This is a short one, almost like an entry in Reader’s Digest. It just goes to show what Russell was all about, sharing anecdotes he’d heard on the trail and presenting it as if we were all sitting around sharing yarns. This one’s about a horse that throws riders, and there’s a question of what to do about it.
3. “A Savage Santa Claus” – Travelers happen upon a shack one cold Christmas Eve and come away with something they never expected. I like to read Christmas things at Christmas time, so it might be fun someday to make a collection of stories like this from all over the place and anthologize. Of course, those days of publishing such things are probably long since past.
4. “Dunc McDonald” – This is the story of a buffalo hunt gone slightly awry. Hard to call these things fiction, if’n Russell’s just telling us what he’s heard from old friends. Gives one a real taste for the days of old though.
5. “The Trail of the Reel Foot” – An interesting story, this one, and probably counted as humorous back in the day. I’d never heard of the Ogallalys tribe before, but they get fooled by this one white cripple. The language of these stories is understandably outdated, and while Russels writes plenty pf pro-Indian stories, there are other examples like this where he (or at least his characters) are less than kind. So you can get a sense of Russell’s style and what I mean, here’s a brief taste:
“In buildin’ all wild animals Nature makes few mistakes, Injuns ‘re only part human, an’ when you see a cripple among ‘em, it’s safe bettin’ that somebody’s worked him over.” (21)
Notice his apostrophes too—and this’n’s just a light example of his writin’!
6. “Bullard’s Wolves” – I found this story difficult to understand at first. I just didn’t know what it meant: “…when he bumped into a couple of wolves that’s been agin a bait. They’ve got enough strychnine so they’re stiff and staggerin’.” (23) I figure now that all those many words simply mean the wolves are dead or dying, but even this is a guess. One great description I loved from this story was this:
“Books are back-tracks of man.” (25)
7. “Injuns” – I really liked this story (despite its title), a history of the White Man’s relationship to the Native Americans at the time. I especially like the section about why some Whites think Indians never smile—and the reason is disheartening! If the rules and weapons were equal, Russell surmises, the Whites would own a whole lot less of America’s land than they do. It reminds me a bit of the philosophy behind the What-If? history in Jake Page’s Apacheria (1998). Despite calling the Indians “only part human” earlier (p.21), Russell has some good things to say about the Native Americans here:
”If an Injun likes you, he’ll go to the end of the trail for you; if he don’t, he’ll go further the other way. If he’s a friend, anything he’s got is yours. If he don’t like you, anything you got is his if he can get away with it.” (28)
8. “Whiskey” – Again for some reason I’m thinking anthology, and this would be a great addition to a collection of stories about drink. It carries with it some wisdom too. I especially liked this set of thoughts:
“If you want to know a man, get him drunk and hell tip his hand. If I like a man when I’m sober, I kin hardly keep from kissing him when I’m drunk. This goes both ways. If I don’t like a man when I’m sober, I don’t want him in the same town when I’m drunk.” (31)
9. “When Pete Sets a Speed Mark” – This seemed like a short joke of a tale. Probably the first story yet that really does seem like fiction, it’s got a good dose of hyperbole.
10. “Bill’s Shelby Hotel” – An interesting piece with a long and colorful description of Bill and the special tourist hotel he runs. Thick with sarcasm.
11. “Dad Lane’s Buffalo Yarn” – This story reminds me well of Steven Rinella‘s book, American Buffalo (2009). It’s a great yarn about prairie fire, surviving an Indian attack, and hunting buffalo for actual meat. It includes this great bit of tracking wisdom from a Native American hunter:
“I remember asking Bad Meat how it was that an Injun never loses his way. He tells me that when a white man travels he looks one way, always straight ahead. Passin’ a butte, he only sees on side of it, never lookin’ back; so of course he don’t savvy that butte on his return. The Injun looks all ways an’ sees all sides of everythin’.” (44)
12. “Bab’s Skees” – This final story in the sections is a humorous tale about an elk hunt gone amok when Babcock’s hand-hewn skis meet gravity.
Part 2: Main Trails
13. “Night Herd” – A man leaves the herd with his partner to explore the saloons of a nearby town and drinks what turns out to be not the best hooch. He only realizes it when he wakes up the next morning.
14. “Curley’s Friend” – A fresh yarn with a sweet, ironic ending. Finally here we get some friendship between the ranch hands and the Indians, even though four on each side are killed by the other. This one contains the most human lesson inside a most inhumane series of events. My favorite yet.
15. “When Mix Went to School” – This one wouldn’t do too well in our mamby -pamby era, but when a school full of ruffians tear a fellow student to shreds, the parents hire a boxer to pose as the new teacher to get the boys right back. Maybe violence from an adult against teens is bad, but I’ve seen enough belly-broiling videos of thugs today blindsiding old ladies or mob-destroying 7-11s or surrounding and beating up their fellow teens based on race or whatever. I gotta say that violence in return might be the only thing that stops them, since the law seems not to be working. Vigilantism might very well make a healthy return to America, if things don’t change soon.
16. “Mormon Murphy’s Confidence” – There’s the tiniest bit of Mormon history with Brigham and Joseph both mentioned in this story, though this Mormon Murphy isn’t really a Mormon, just a nice guy who rode with this storyteller for a while. It’s his nice-guy-ness that gets him killed by a scheming Indian, and Old Dad Lane is left to bury him. I liked this line about loneliness:
“When ye ain’t got humans ye’ll find animals good company.” (72)
17. “Lepley’s Bear” – Better titled “Lepley’s Horse,” cuz that’s the real star of this tiny yarn about how his horse unwittingly saved him from a bear attack.
18. “How Louse Creek Was Named” – Short and sweet and about exactly what you’d expect from a story with this title. It’s as if M. Night Shyamalan renamed The Sixth Sense as Bruce Willis Was Dead the Whole Time.
19. “Johnny Reforms Landusky” – I’ve got to admit it: I didn’t understand this one at all. It’s a wordy tale from Rawhide Rawlins that perhaps is a “had to be there” story (only the “there” I should be “then”). This story just didn’t age well.
20. “Safety First! But Where Is It?” – I don’t know why, but this one reminded me of sermon illustration: running from a bull and backing into a cave inhabited by a bear. No great options in this scenario!
21. “A Pair of Outlaws” – A guy who himself seems pretty criminal steals a horse from the Cheyenne, yet he’s unaware of what a terror the bucking bronco is till he mounts it.
“Gentle hosses is all right, but give me a snaky one for a hard ride.” (90)
22. “The Ghost Horse” – It’s a little bit the history of an era through the eyes of a horse. Perhaps my next favorite story of the lot so far. It reminds me of James Michener, actually, like his long introduction to Centennial (1974) through the eyes of nature. It’s a truly engaging story—and thankfully longer than a page, as some of these short stories have been!
Part 3: Mavericks and Strays
23. “Range Horses” -This was an informative piece, all about range horses and their peculiarities. Since we don’t have many range horses anymore these days (though I’ve seen some in the backcountry of the Utah-Colorado border), it’s great to learn this piece of mammalian history. In fact it reminded me a lot of what Jack London might have written, and that’s always a bonus in my mind.
24. “The Horse” – The history of the horse, from cavemen to “today .” It’s a sentimental pitch that informs in an entertaining way.
25. “Tommy Simpson’s Cow” – Not sure I like this one. Is it true? If not then what’s the point? Maybe if I were a dairy farmer I’d get the point, and maybe most people in the pre-milkman days would understand it, but I just don’t get the point.
26. “Hands Up” – Now this one I liked: a touch of suspense, which gets your emotions right up, and then a saving quality in the end when recompense pays a visit.
27. “Mormon Zack, Fighter” – This one is just a lot of little anecdotes from old Rawhide Rawlins about a Norwegian who knew how to fight. Interesting. A taste of the olden times. At least he’s not killing a man everywhere he went, like we see in the old Westerns. Wanton violence is a step above wanton murder—neither great, but if you had to choose…
28. “Finger-That-Kills Wins His Squaw” – This was a story hard to get into at first, because it began as he said, she said, he said, he said. But its imagery will stick with you for years—and it’ll make you wonder if, next time you go to war, you should maybe keep your wedding ring at home. I loved this line about one’s ability to read nature:
“The only book [the old Indian has] is these old prairies, but it’s open to him an’ he knows every leaf in her; I tell you, fellers, she sure holds good yarns for them that can read her.” (123)
29. “Dog Eater” – Pet owners beware of this one. There’s survival stories and then there’s this. We’ve been watching our way as a family through some old episodes of Alone on The History Channel, so hunger is on my mind, but I can’t imagine any of those contestants pulling a stump—er, stunt—like this. Some of them cry when they snare a rabbit with a rabbit snare they set up to catch rabbits. I think they’d rather die than what old Dog Eater has to do!
30. “How Lindsay Turned Indian” – A somewhat longer story about exactly what the title says. A tribe takes the lost youth in when he lights their pipes with a piece of glass, and he stays once they trust him enough with a Buffalo hunt. And that’s about it. A slice of history with this great passage about females leading:
“It’s the women that make the men in this world, I heard an educated feller say once, an’ it’s the truth that, if a man’s goin’ to hell or heaven, if you look in the trail ahead of him you’ll find a track the same shape as his, only smaller; it’s a woman’s track. She’s always ahead, right or wrong, tollin’ him on. In animals, the same as humans, the female leads.” (135)
31. “Brooke Buffalo” – This one is a funny tale, and I love how the guy tries to make sense of it—if only he has a thin farm stretching from Mexico to Canada! Funny stuff.
32. “A Ride in Moving Cemetery” – This is a truly unbelievable yarn from 1911, but who knows? Perhaps this really happened to one of the many people that Russell through Rawlins had met and wrote about. Still, pretty unbelievable, though a unique idea.
33. “A Reformed Cowpuncher at Miles City” – I was not a fan of this one. There’s irony at every turn, but I think you have to be familiar with the land and time and places and culture to get it all.
Part 4: Wide Ranges
34. “Ranches” – This one opens with an historical bang, Rawlins bemoaning the changing times, especially the advancements in technology that have turned the youth into genuine good for nothings. I really like how he described the son here, and I think it gives a good taste of the tale as a whole:
“Son can play football. He’s good with the gloves and can do all kinds of tricks with Injun clubs, but with an ax he’s plumb harmless. He couldn’t split enough wood to cook a flapjack, in a month. He can find the button that turns on the light but he couldn’t find one of his dad’s claves in a corral with a bell on. Maybe he could find work, but he never looks for it.” (160)
Oh, if only Rawlins could see what’s become of men a century later! Most boys these days don’t even know where their food comes from, let alone have any urge to participate in the making of it.
35. “Fashions” – This story is only 3 paragraphs long, but it’s worth repeating in its entirety to show Russell’s humor. It’s a great one! Similar to the previous, historical, funny, and the signs of a man unwilling to accept the changing times.
In Granddad’s time, when a man starts looking for his mate, he’s sure gambling. If the lady limps he might think her shoes hurt, but maybe she’s got a wooden leg; with the yards of garments she’s wearing, he can’t tell. What she’s got on would overdress a ballroom to-day. He\’s only got two safe bets—her face and her hands. Of course, she’s wearing long hair, but her head is another gamble; maybe it’s got bumps like a summer squash; and maybe the hair that hides it is a wig. She’d look the same with a night-cap on in a feather bed. As I said before, “Our grandpaws was sure gamblers!”
It’s different to-day. Bobbed hair, short skirts, low front, and back—every rag she’s wearing wouldn’t pad a crutch. If you think you’re getting the worst of it, take the lady to the seashore, get her wet in her one-piece suit and you don’t need no X-ray—the cards are face up on the table; scars, warts, or pimples, they are all in sight—all you got to do not is find out what brand of cigarettes she uses.
I used to think that men could stand more punishment than women, but I was wrong. In winder a girl wears a fox skin, but her brisket is bared to the weather, and there ain’t nothin’ on her that’s warmer than a straw hat. But she don’t pound her feet nor swing her arms. Is she’s cold nobody knows it. If a man would go out dressed this way, there ain’t doctors enough in the world to save him. No sir, a woman can go farther with a lipstick than a man with a Winchester and a side of bacon. (161)
36. “The Open Range” – This is another general history of how things were. A snippet of information to remind us of how it all once was, but these days are long gone.
37. “Bronc Twisters” – This contains two stories about bronco breaking. They both remind me a lot of Hal Borland‘s great novel, When the Legends Die (1963).
38. “There’s More Than One David” – This one reminds me of the few joke-stories in here, in that it’s one of the few that makes me realize that many of these stories are definitely fiction. So many of do seem real—or at least plausible retellings of true accounts. This one is a retelling, sure, but not of someone’s experience. Instead it’s a retelling of the battle between David and Goliath (1Samuel 17). One big oaf battles a shepherd boy for messing with the boy’s dog, and the giant gets licked.
39. “The War Scars of Medicine-Whip” – The most violent story yet, it darkens the imagination and reminds us that the First Nations weren’t all the peace-loving corn-raisers that today’s media and academia make them out to be. I think that’s true of all our ancestors when we got back far enough.
40. “How Pat Discovered the Geyser” – This is another tongue-in-cheek story. It makes you wonder where he got all these other ideas, if some like this are pure fiction. But oh, the characters he must have met to inspire him to write the characters he does! I must have been quite a world, the turn-of-the-century West peopled with crack-shots and crackpots.
41. “Some Liars of the Old West” – A solid collection of tall tales from the saloons of the West that make you feel like you’re sitting around a grungy table with a poker deck in hand, while the dusty old men around you are spitting tobacco and lies in a classic game of one-upmanship. I really enjoyed this one, sporadic though it was.
42. “Highwood Hank Quits” – This is short story of an old man no longer able to handle the rough rides of a bucking Bronco. Russell-through-Rawlins makes this one good and funny, though, with a little back and forth with Hank’s ”Wifie.”
43. “Longrope’s Last Guard” – This final story takes you to the prairie on a dark and eerie night just before a storm wakes a herd of cattle in fright. It’s a well-written closer to this fantastic collection, sad and poignant and a good reminder of a time that’s long since passed.
All right. There it is. This post is long enough. Get the book. It’s an enjoyable walk through the history of The Old West.
©2024 E.T.
Read More on Wilderness Exploration:
- The Scalp Hunters by Captain Thomas Mayne Reid (1860)
- Away in the Wilderness by R.M. Ballantyne (1863)
- Love of Life and Other Stories by Jack London (1907)
- Daniel Boone: Wilderness Scout by Stewart Edward White (1921)
- Journal of a Trapper by Osborne Russell (1921)
- Trails Plowed Under by Charles M. Russell (1927)
- The Man in the Wilderness by Jack DeWitt (1971)
- Centennial by James Michener (1974)
- Blood and Treasure by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin (2021)