Coming West….

Everybody who came West was coming to build, some to build in the West, some merely to get rich and get out, but all were intending to do great things, to grow, to achieve.  She heard the talk of the stage passengers while they were eating.  None of them seemed to have any doubts; none of them seemed worried by Indians, by deserts, mountains, or the wilderness.

This was their land of Canaan, the land where dreams came true, but here there was a difference, for each one of them seemed sure that he had to make the dreams come true, that it would be the result of something he did. – The Cherokee Trail by Louis L’Amour

Responsibility

She remembered so well what her father had said, “Don’t waste time worrying about the mistakes of yesterday. Each morning is a beginning. Start from there.” – The Cherokee Trail by Louis L’Amour

“One day,” her father had often said, “this will all be yours, so you must learn how it functions. Never trust your affairs to anyone else. If you have a foreman or a super intendant, that’s fine, but be sure you know what is going on. You give the orders, you check to make sure your wishes are carried out.” – The Cherokee Trail by Louis L’Amour

Book Review: The Proving Trail by Louis L’Amour

Kearney McRaven comes down from the mountains, where he has been punching cows all winter, to find his father dead. According to several people, Mr. McRaven committed suicide after losing a poker game.

Except, as Kearney McRaven knows, his father was not a quitter. He had been gambling for several years now, and losing every time. Yet never before did he ever consider killing himself after losing a game. So why the sudden change?

Then Kearney overhears men in the tavern talking, and he learns that his father did not lose said card game. Actually, he won nine to ten thousand dollars that night. So if that is the case, then he could not have killed himself. He had won his first poker game, and he had won it big. He had no reason to commit suicide.

But whoever he was playing against had thousands of reasons to murder him.

Kearney goes to the town judge to get his father’s belongings, and the judge sticks to the story he was first told: his father lost the game and committed suicide. But Kearney is not having it. Keeping his father’s pistol on the judge, he tells him to take out the money – and the deed – that his father won in the poker game.

The judge does not like it, especially since Kearney is so young. He is not even eighteen. But he is in no position to argue with the pistol that Kearney is holding, despite having a gun of his own in his safe. He hands over the money and the deed, but not without trying to sweet talk Kearney into entrusting it to him.

Kearney would rather light it on fire and watch it burn. He gets out of town, heading back for the cabin where he lived while he kept watch over the cattle. He stashes the money and the deed along the way, just in case. This turns out to be fortuitous when, in the cabin where he lived for the last few months, he meets the judge and some thugs. They beat him up and demand that he tell them where he hid the money.

But Kearney knows that if he tells them where he hid it, they will kill him. So he lies and says it was stolen, in order to buy himself some time to make a plan. Eventually, he manages to escape the judge and his cronies. But he is so banged up that he would not survive if he did not run into a group of friendly Indians. The Indians take care of him until he is well enough to ride off.

Doing this, Kearney comes to another town. There he meets a man who, from behind, strongly resembles his father. He is so taken aback that he calls the man “Pa,” startling the man and making him turn.

He really, really should not have said anything to the man. Why?

Let’s just say the money Mr. McRaven won in that card game is not the only reason someone would want him dead. It turns out that Mr. McRaven came from somewhere in the American south. He went west to escape a family feud that has been tearing his clan apart for generations. They wanted him out of the way so they could claim sole possession of the land Mr. McRaven held through inheritance. Thinking the senior McRaven had no heirs, this branch of the family now believes they are in the clear because of his death….

Until Kearney calls this man “Pa.”

The Proving Trail is a fast paced, thrilling tale of murder and intrigue. It was the second L’Amour novel that I read, the first being The Cherokee Trail. The historical accuracy is, as usual, superb. Mr. L’Amour shows he is a knowledgeable man in this story. The McCoys and the Hatfields have nothing on the McRavens and the Yants. But you do not need to take my word for it, readers! Pick up The Proving Trail and find out for yourselves how good a story it is!

Book Review: Star Trek: The Great Starship Race by Diane Carey

Well, I did not begin posting about Star Trek fiction as soon as I had hoped.  But better late than never, right?

Today’s focus is Star Trek: The Great Starship Race by Diane Carey.  If you were to type the title of the book into the search engine of my blog, you would come up with several quotes from the novel posted here.  Not nearly so many as you would get if you typed in The Cherokee Trail, but you would get a good number nonetheless.

The Great Starship Race takes place in the Original Star Trek series timeline.  It focuses primarily on Kirk and his point of view, with occasional shifts to McCoy’s perspective.

But The Great Starship Race actually begins from the viewpoint of Valdus, a Subcenturion on the Romulan ship Scorah.  The Scorah and its supporting Swarm are out patrolling a sector of Romulan space when they stumble across an old spaceship with barely any warp capabilities.  Picking up the ship, they find five aliens aboard, aliens sent on a mission of exploration from their homeworld in the hopes of finding other life in the galaxy.

The aliens are friendly.  They fall all over the Romulans, they are so happy to learn they are not the only intelligent beings in the galaxy.  But when the Romulan commander tries to get them to reveal their planet’s location, things fall apart.  Somehow, someway, the nervous fright of the five aliens aboard the ship drives all the Romulans into murderous rages.  They kill each other and destroy the Scorah…

All of them die except for one:  Valdus.  He is the only one to escape the conflagration, the only one to come back to sanity.  He is therefore the only one to realize how dangerous these aliens are to the Romulan people.

Fast-forward eighty-six years.  The Federation ship U.S.S. Hood, under the command of Captain Kenneth Dodge, made contact twelve years earlier with the people of Gullrey.  Now, twelve years later, the Rey are about to be accepted into the Federation.  And they are so happy about it that they are throwing a party, which will hopefully become an annual event:  the first Great Starship Race.

Among the competitors are four Starfleet ships – including Captain James T. Kirk’s U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701.

Captain Kirk is looking forward to the race on several levels.  Races are part of sailing history, so as a historian he is naturally happy to be participating in a race, the way that the sailing captains of the past once did.  On another level, he is looking forward to showing off his ship – his “favorite girl.”  And how can participating in a race not be fun?

He finds the answer to that question soon enough, when they are on their way to Starbase 16.  The starting line of the race, Starbase 16 sends a frantic call to the Enterprise about a Romulan heavy cruiser which has crossed the Neutral Zone.  It is headed for the base and transmitting interstellar truce.

What, you ask, is the Romulans’ reason for violating the Neutral Zone between Federation and Romulan space?  Oh, nothing really important – they just want to join the race.

If it were not such a dangerous situation, Kirk would laugh about it.  But a Romulan heavy cruiser in Federation space, whatever their proclaimed reason for entering, is no laughing matter.  He finds it even less funny when he meets the commander of the Red Talon:  Valdus.

And Valdus is none too happy when he sees Kirk.  Loathing using view screens for first meetings, Valdus sees something in Kirk’s eyes that disturbs him.  He knows Kirk is not a man who will give up, and that could be a problem.

As for Kirk, he can tell by looking at Valdus that the Romulan is not here to just run a race.  He knew that before he saw him, but seeing him convinces Kirk that there is something else to Valdus’ desire to join the contest, some dangerous ulterior motive.  And it has something to do with the Rey, whose planet is the finish line of the competition…

That is all I am telling you, readers.  The Great Starship Race is a really good piece of Star Trek fiction.  I think that it was one of the first Star Trek novels which I read.  The entire Enterprise Seven is present and accounted for, though Chekov gets short shrift in the dialogue and action departments.  Still, he is there.  That is what counts.

I do not know if Diane Carey wrote any more Star Trek fiction.  I think she did.  Either way, The Great Starship Race is a Star Trek story which I highly recommend to you.  So warp on over to the nearest library and see if they have a copy!  If they do not, then you should request it.  This is a story that ought to be on at least one set of library shelves!

Later,

The Mithril Guardian

Book Review: The Cherokee Trail by Louis L’Amour

Those of you who have attended to this blog for any length of time will recognize the title of this post. If you were to type The Cherokee Trail into the search engine on the right hand side of your screen, you would probably get more results than I care to calculate.

At the dawn of this blog’s existence, I wrote a post about a book which contained many quotes from Louis L’Amour’s stories. This book had been compiled by the famous author’s actress daughter, Angelique L’Amour. And yet, despite the fact that he is one of my favorite authors, I have not reviewed a novel written by the man who brought the West to life for so many people.

That ends today, readers. This post is about The Cherokee Trail, written by Louis L’Amour, published in 1982.

The Cherokee Trail focuses on one M. O. Breydon, the widow of Major M. O. Breydon. Mrs. Mary O. Breydon is on her way west with her daughter, Peg. She is riding the stagecoach to Cherokee Station, a stage station along the Cherokee Trail. This station is where her husband planned to get a job. Since he is dead, murdered by guerrillas, the job has fallen to her. She needs the money, and she intends to hold this job no matter what.

Mrs. Breydon and Peg are not the only passengers on this stage. There is an Irish girl just a few years younger than Mrs. Breydon herself and a well dressed, heavy set man. There is also a younger man, seated at the opposite end of the bench across from her and her daughter, whose insinuating glances discomfit Mrs. Breydon.

And there is a young, grey eyed man with three pistols in his belt and a black hat pulled low over his face who is seated right next to Peg.

The Irish girl, Matty Maginnis, initiates a conversation with Mrs. Breydon, which the men enter in on. During this conversation it is revealed that Cherokee Station is run by an uncouth drunk named Scant Luther. The man has a bad reputation and no respect for women. Nevertheless, Mary Breydon plans to dismiss him as her husband would have. And she plans to take his job, which her husband accepted before he was murdered: the management of Cherokee Station.

Well, the stage pulls into the station, a soused Luther comes out, and a scene ensues. Mary Breydon has the letter giving him notice of his discharge and replacement read out loud in front of him and the other stage passengers. Luther does not take kindly to being replaced – especially by a woman from back East. He sits down in the doorway of the station and challenges Mrs. Breydon to fire him.

And fire him she does – with a horsewhip! Right in the middle of his statement of the rules for the challenge, she takes the stage driver’s whip from his hand and it is obvious she knows how to use it. Four lashes later, plus one hard look from the grey eyed man on the stage, and Luther decides to hustle on out of the way. For now.

Mrs. Breydon cleans up some of the mess he left behind in the station building and gets a suitable lunch set out for the passengers. Two of the men ride on in the stage while Matty remains at the station, taking Mrs. Breydon’s offer of a job as maid and cook. The grey eyed man, Temple Boone, decides to stay the night as well, since he has a horse waiting for him in the station’s stables.

In addition, Mrs. Breydon finds a young boy named Wat Tanner standing outside the station building. She invites him to work for her as well, and he agrees, so long as its “man’s work” and not “women’s work” – such as washing the dishes!

The Cherokee Trail was, I believe, the first novel of Louis L’Amour’s which I ever read. It not only impressed me, it made me hungry for more. Mr. L’Amour led a colorful life, and he wrote something on the order of over two hundred books. He used a variety of pen names before signing his books with his real name. Apparently, the publishers did not believe a name like “Louis L’Amour” would catch people’s attention. John Wayne – real name Marion Morrison – had to use a pseudonym in his work for similar reasons.

Louis L’Amour researched all his novels carefully, and the Author’s Note which precedes The Cherokee Trail proves it. Someday soon I will review another novel of his. For the time being, readers, you have an assignment: search out and read The Cherokee Trail. It is worth the hunt, and if you do not love it for any reason, I am truly sorry to hear that. If you do like it – welcome to the range, partner! We’ve been expectin’ ya!

Until next time!

The Mithril Guardian

Wandering

“It’s like the rest of them, mum. No matter where you are, there is always something else that might be better, just a little further west.”

It was true, of course. Wandering got into the blood, and there were always those greener pastures that lay over the fence or over the next range of mountains.

Here all was strange and new and yet somehow familiar. Western men and women had little time for contemplation, although Temple Boone said he did most of his thinking alongside a campfire or when riding. Western men were thinking of how things could be done; they were used to making do. Since coming to Cherokee, she had heard several stories of men alone who had set their own broken bones, amputated limbs, doing what could be done to survive. Only a few miles away, two sisters had built their own log cabin. – The Cherokee Trail by Louis L’Amour

Learning the Ways of the West

Nobody asked questions out here. That was one of the first things she had to learn. Every man was taken at face value until he proved himself to be otherwise. What you had been before was unimportant.

The West, she had come to understand, was a place where you started over. When you came West, you wiped off the slate, and whatever you were began here and now. If you had courage, did your job, and were a man of your word, nobody cared whatever you might have been. It was a good thing, she decided. There should always be a place for people to begin again.

Some, like herself, had lost loved ones. Some had gone bankrupt, some had gotten themselves into trouble with the law, into debts that were a burden, some were simply men and women who did not fit into any pattern. They were not the kind to become tellers in the corner bank, grocery clerks, ministers, or lawyers. They were born with a restlessness in them, an urge to move, to get on with it. If you proved yourself a responsible person, nobody cared where you came from.

She was learning, she realized, and ridding herself of preconceived ideas. She had heard the West was lawless, but that had been a mistake. Organized law was, for the most part, remote and far away. However, there were unwritten laws that all obeyed, and if there were a few who did not, the response was apt to be abrupt and very, very final.

The west was tolerant, to a point. When tolerance reached its limit, there was usually a rope or a bullet waiting. – The Cherokee Trail by Louis L’Amour

The Friendship of a Good Book

“Never read me many books.” He paused, embarrassed. “Always figured to, sometime. I seen a few around. One time, a long while back, I worked some in a store back in Missouri. They had all manner of books. Folks goin’ West used to buy ‘em. I just couldn’t believe there was so many folks who could not only read but wanted to.”

“If one has a book, Mr. Boone, one is never alone. They will talk to you when you want to listen, and when you tire of what they saying, you just close the book. It will be waiting for you when you come back to it.” – Exchange between Mary Breydon and Temple Boone in The Cherokee Trail by Louis L’Amour

Interested in Books?

“You’re interested in books, ma’am?”

She looked around at the storekeeper, surprised. “I’ve only a few, but folks like the very best. They like books they can read over and over. Right down the street, there’s a bookstore. He carries quite a stock, along with pencils, papers, notions, and such. That’s where Mark Stacy buys his books.”

“Mark Stacey? Somehow I did not imagine him to be a reader.”

“Some of these folks surprise you, ma’am. You never know who is the reader or who has the education. That’s why there’s few western towns without a bookstore.” – Exchange between Mary Breydon and a storekeeper in The Cherokee Trail by Louis L’Amour

Power

“Matty,” she said when they were alone, “I am frightened.”

“I know, mum. I feel just the same. ‘Tis a power of wickedness there is in the world, and too bad that the likes of you an’ me must suffer for it.” – The Cherokee Trail by Louis L’Amour