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A Christmas invitation

Published by Gregg Townsley on November 26, 2015 Respond

CowboyChristmasThere was no reason Ronin couldn’t find his way out of Carson City for the holidays. No physical constraint was keeping him. No emotional attachment either, though there was the annual expectation he’d attend services at the Indian school south of town.

He’d been a part of the American Gospel Mission’s “Christmas supper and show,” as he put it, since 1877, when he first came to Nevada’s Eagle Valley, fresh out of employment with the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. A couple of missteps and they had severed their relationship with the handsome ex-preacher. He’d gotten involved with a Spiritualist client—the beautiful and shapely Madame Bovary, a pseudonym it turned out, taken from a French novel he never read. He didn’t know her real name. The work since—here a bad guy, there a bad guy, a few more bad guys and gals in-between—had been surprisingly enjoyable.

He had nothing else to do.

So when the mission called, via the usual holiday card and Christmas gift—a fruitcake, of all things, but it was better than a Bible he’d never pick up or let alone read—the gunfighter hesitated.

He’d attempted to back away from the Presbyterian woman’s mission school a couple of years ago. Their relationship had changed—it needed to. He had no regrets, and she’d gotten married to a decent Mormon man who’d made a name for himself in eastern Nevada, when Ronin and an Ormsby County deputy hunted a short son of a bitch who’d killed a woman he’d loved in Virginia City, not that anyone knew of the relationship between Ronin and the ball-gazing twin, an eye-catching fortune teller also.

He held an attraction to spiritually-minded women, though it bothered him to say so.

He’d abandoned the rigid orthodoxy of the Episcopal Church in 1873—the year the Colt Peacemaker was made—leaving a log-bound Wichita church in the less capable hands of those who wanted it—a tired-eyed merchant, his ignorant wife, an angry town constable and a pack of pigeon-minded misfits and miscreants who couldn’t tell the holy story from their own, not that the church saw things that way.

They figured he was simply finished. And he was, though he had some feelings about that.

The thing with the women crept up on him, like suppressed desires often do. He should have made peace with the One who would never let him go, though the Divine so clearly did, allowing him to change his mind, trotting off after a once-in-a-lifetime’s adventure to see America’s expanding West. It would soon be gone, he thought.

What wasn’t gone was his affinity for the deep and the beautiful, and the mysteries that often live in-between.

When the Washoe boy delivered the note—“Dear William,” it said, as Emma’s notes always did—the still smoldering hollowness took over, a lingering hunger he couldn’t fix. And while the truly holy could wait—Nevada’s dry open spaces, crags of heartless burnt-over ground punctuated by the crisp smell of sage and pine, the occasional cheat grass that promised just enough to always keep both beast and man the short side of satisfied—Christmas was looming, and the presents were being packed, and the program was being printed that said, as it always did:

“Invocation, by the Reverend W. W. Ronin”

Though he was no longer one, and didn’t want to be one, but would always be seen as one by the woman who guided the mission, and who a long and not so holy time ago had guided his heart like the sky-born star that once led wiser men to a truth larger than themselves.

Emma Nauman was no one to be ignored, especially at Christmastime, when the town’s note-worthies—donors to be sure, some of them no doubt significant—gathered at the mission’s spread north of Gardnerville and Genoa, once called “Mormon Town,” just south of Chinatown, an area that would never amount to anything, there being no need for the city to ever expand into the Carson Valley.

The southern spur seemed to argue differently, pushing people and product farther down the Sierras than anyone would ever have expected, short of railroad folk, who knew how to ruin a frontiersman’s dream like no other institution save perhaps the church.

Time was the devil’s playground. And town clock’s—phallic protuberances towering above city skies—the secret servant of them both. Their relentless march toward the railroad robber barons’ and church reverends’ dreams robbed free men of space and silence and wide-open places ungoverned by either. He was sick of both, though the season didn’t permit his saying so, nor the venue Emma Nauman imagined—a short service of carols and readings, and candlelight, and a prayer from the man once who once held her heartstrings, and was as intimate with her as any human savior could be, though even a virgin once became pregnant. And it’s not like he hadn’t tried.

He picked up the card, beige, engraved and a spot of color to suggest the season:

Green—for the fact that spring would someday come and that winter wouldn’t last forever,

Red—for the apples on Eden’s tree that brought sin, and the bishops’ robes who mediated the sacred toward all who believed,

Gold—the color of sun and light, and perhaps the richest gift offered the peasant child who laid in a manger because there was no room for such people in a civilized inn,

White—for snow and purity and the wafers eaten during the Eucharistic Mass, heavenly food for fools and felons and regular folk alike.

He turned the cardstock over, and was surprised to see an additional note:

Thinking of you, as the season turns cold and lonely, and only the brave come in. Always, Emma.

There was no letting go of the past. It would haunt him this year as it did every year at this time. She would trouble him, too, until he showed up on her doorstep, like a Christmas child in search of heavenly nurture and protection.

“Should I wait, sir?” the boy asked. The detective shook his head.

“No,” he said, quietly. “Tell your mistress I’ll be there, and I will be happy to offer whatever prayers there are within me.”

The boy smiled.

And he smiled, too, though he’d would never admit. San Francisco, and whatever enduring darkness or undertaking lingered there, would have to wait.

 

From The Rage and the Reckoning, by Gregg Edwards Townsley, all rights reserved, November, 2015.

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Tommy Valentine’s “Beach Body”

Published by Gregg Townsley on September 4, 2015 Respond

Beach Body Cover 3I gotta tell you, I’m excited about these new Tommy Valentine, PI, adventures–“Beach Body,” “Waimea Wiseguys,” “Monkey Punch” and Portland Weird.” There’s something about the Tommy and Babs characters that sets the muse moving.

In this third story, the Penns Grove Private Investigators head back to Long Beach Island to investigate the curious death of a Barnegat Light man, washed up on the sand at Beach Haven. Our latest Kindle-only tale includes the usual on-location dining hints, a mad swipe at the Philly Mafia, and a humorous and fun description of liquor and life in West Jersey.

“Waimea Wiseguys” is up next, and is expected to be available after our visit to Kauai in January. The remaining two will round out the first season of episodes in the Tommy Valentine series, and will be included in the first season’s anthology, tentatively entitled Monkey Business. You should see the book cover! The anthology will be available in paperback and Kindle versions sometime next spring.

Here’s an excerpt of “Beach Body.”

“She’s the computer of the house, and the brains between the two of us, because most of the time I’m simply the brawn, the fist in the gym bag so to speak, the mallet in the croquet kit, not that I play but you get the point…”

The second in the series, “Jersey Tomato,” is available September 5.

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“Jersey Tomato” to publish in September

Published by Gregg Townsley on July 27, 2015 Respond

tommy valentineThe whole point of a first draft, someone recently posted on my Facebook page, is to see where the story is going. Subsequent drafts decide how to best tell the story. I’m a “pantser,” not a planner, when it comes to most of my writing. So I like that thought. Here’s a peek at my writing desk, where I’m approving galleys for Home Means Nevada, writing the next W. W. Ronin Western, Bathhouse Row, and finishing up the second of the Tommy Valentine, PI short stories, “Jersey Tomato.” This is the draft of the first of three chapters I’ve completed for the latter, set on Long Beach Island, New Jersey.

1  PENNS GROVE

I’ve been asked if I’m Tommy Valentine, the golfer. Tommy was—emphasis on the word was—a Gainesville, Georgia man who spent maybe a dozen years on the pro golf circuit, before heading to Gross Pointe Woods, Michigan to coach rich guys how to play a game that’s wrecked a million marriages, and maybe saved a few, not that anyone’s saying. I wouldn’t know anything about the fellow if it wasn’t for my wife, who used to make it a point to keep up with the top-40 pro golf money makers in the late seventies and eighties. Gross Pointe Woods was the only one of the five Gross Pointe communities not to have a spot on Lake Saint Claire’s shoreline, though it has a park I’m told, which is not the same thing. Living in Gross Point Woods means you’re nowhere near the powerboat, sailing and yacht clubs that real Michigan money-makers enjoy, though I’m sure he did alright. Tommy was the Head Pro at the Lochmoor Club on Sunningdale Drive, prior to retiring in December of 2009. He died of cancer five years later, which argues that you should live your life now, Jersey Tomatogoddamnit. Because before you know it you could end up a GOMER—an aged and practically lifeless guy or gal, sucking up someone else’s resources in a big city emergency room. The word is a cruelty, to be sure—healthcare is like that—but when an ER doc pastes the acronym to your personality, she means just that. Get Out of My Emergency Room, because your life-long legacy is on its final leg, and there isn’t anything anyone can do for you save to hook you up to a tube or two and send your wife on a search for some other dick, because you are practically dead. I say “dick,” because that’s what I am, though I’ve been called worse. I’m speaking of my occupation, of course, not my personality. The latter has been judged to be something less than normal, “sub-normal” one Long Beach Island woman said, though I don’t think that’s a category in the DSM-5, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, like I give a shit. It’s just a book, man… This Tommy Valentine is a private detective, who plies his trade in Penns Grove, New Jersey, which is five-hundred and some miles from Gross Point anything, which is ten miles southwest of Detroit. So a guy ought to keep his mouth shut if he’s boasting about where he lives, like Gross Pointe anywhere is something to be aspired after. We all live southwest of somewhere, even Detroit auto execs. Babs and I own a small detective agency in the same Penns Grove strip mall as the local IGA, a wonderful little market in which to buy coffee and jelly donuts though much of the rest of the city has gone to shit, not that we’re complaining. We love the town. Penns Grove used to boast summer cottages and the like just outside of Philadelphia, across from Wilmington, Delaware, which used to run a ferry back and forth across the river for visits and such. That’s how swell our town used to be.  A DuPont powder plant changed everything, just prior to the First World War, when America needed a lot more TNT than it was used to using, not that it’s DuPont’s fault, or America’s fault, I guess. We might blame the whole gone-to-shit thing on the German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, not that blaming someone ever got anyone anywhere.  I’m just saying. But we do alright, Babs and me. We do the usual stuff that dicks do, investigations and the like, some interesting, some not so much. Every so often we find ourselves in a trunk full of trouble, which is maybe where the name “dick” comes from. “Here’s the possibilities,” Babs says, who doesn’t like my using the word so she’s spent a crazy amount of time thinking about it. “Dick” could be a contraction, like couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t, didn’t, and can’t, which is what the pregnant woman was yelling when she went into labor and was having some. “Contractions,” I say. “You’re not much for jokes, either,” she says. It could be, I guess. “Detective and Dick sound the same,” she argues. Whatever. Most days, I’m just along for the ride. Another thought is that Dick comes from a Romanian word, not that I’ve ever heard any, nor Babs either so who can say. But dik, as it’s spelled in Romanian, which is one of those romance languages, she says. “Twenty-four million people speak it,” she insists, like I’ve ever met a Romanian. “The word means to see or to watch,” she says, as we’re driving west-bound on the Atlantic City expressway. “That’s what private detectives do,” she says, “more or less,” she being my helper, me being the one who is usually staring down the fraudsters, cheaters and folks a good deal more criminal than that through the darkened windows of one of our cars—a 1967 Chevy Malibu, some nights and days. It’s quite a classic, you know, an old-fashioned hunk of steel, if you ask me. Hell, I make a lot of money sitting in that thing, though right now we’re on our way to Long Beach Island so as to look for someone’s dog, which is freaking unbelievable because no one has that kind of money—it’ll cost you $500 a day, plus expenses—save maybe the people in Gross Point or Long Beach Island, not that I’ve been to either. I’ll tell you about the dog in a minute. “The third possibility is that the word has to do with Dick Donovan,” she says, who was a fictional detective in the late 1800s. Like Dick Tracy, who was more a cop than anything else though Tracy’s wrist-gadgetry calls to mind how real any of the technical stuff really is because the cops I know have so little of it, they’re so poorly paid and such. The only talking watch I ever saw was on a blind lady in Carson City, Nevada, so I know they make such things. Dick Donovan was a sort of Sherlock Homes, Babs says, who is now the prototype for my profession, though no one likes being called “Homes” or “Sherlock” or “Tracy.” So it’s dick. But like I said, Babs and I are on our way to Long Beach Island to look for someone’s weiner, and I’m not talking about Anthony so stop laughing. The island has a few communities to it, like Gross Pointe apparently does, and one of their peeps—a female mayor of all things—lost her Dachshund dog during a traffic stop where she blew a .25 on a BACtrack Mobile Smartphone Breathalyzer, which has led to all sorts of problems, none of which I’m interested in save the dog. Babs says “in and out,” because it’s our vacation week and we’ve got a real nice place to stay in Beach Haven, a couple of blocks from the new Acme store, which blew down during Hurricane Sandy. So it’ll be real easy to pick up a couple of cartons of Tastykakes while we’re working, and some Franks root beer. We’ll expense it, you know? Incidentally, the BACtrack Mobile Smartphone Breathalyzer is compatible with your Android or Apple watch, if you care about such things. It will “help you make better decisions,” the sons of bitches say on their website. Which goes to show that not only Dick Tracy types can now wear multi-functioned digital communicators on their wrists I guess, but any dick or dickless person—private eye or not—can wear one,  too. Amazing. Babs says we’re going to try one of the back roads, given that we seem to be headed in the wrong direction, so I’ve got to stop writing for now. I’m thinking we should have spent the weekend in Pennsville, just up the road a ways from Penns Grove. Riverview Park isn’t what it used to be, bumper cars, roller coasters, a hand-carved carousel and an Olympic-sized pool. It’s just a beach and a couple of soft ball fields. It isn’t Gross Pointe to be sure, or Long Beach Island for that matter, but we’d be there by now, and we wouldn’t be lost, and I wouldn’t be listening to Babs go on and on about famous detectives and such. Hell, we’d be sleeping in our own bed in just a few hours, and that would be—trust me when I say this—shear bliss.

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The Presbyterian church

Published by Gregg Townsley on April 23, 2015 Respond
fpc carson city

First Presbyterian Church, Carson City

The old door shook. It wasn’t his intent to harm anything.

Fact is, the once-reverend W. W. Ronin wouldn’t think of making light of the buildings that had given him succor over the years—initially in Greensboro, Pennsylvania where he was in training, and later in Wichita, Kansas as the second rector of the St. John’s Episcopal Church, when it was still made out of logs and situated between the confluence of two sometimes over-flowing rivers.

There was still something sacred about religious places, even if he didn’t embrace the faith they sometimes contained.

The church wasn’t just about “the people,” as he used to say while preaching, one hand on the lectionary, the other searching for a Bible in the event his people asked an unexpected question or two over the meal that many times followed services. Church was the building, too, though he didn’t understand that at the time.

He lifted his knee up to his chest  and pushed again, the bottom of his foot—the ball, actually, not the heel as it dissipated too much force to use his boot that way—and the old wooden doors, crafted from pine planks harvested in the Sierra mountains, just up the Kings Canyon toll road he figured not that it mattered, splintered into pieces like the old man’s leg caught under the wheel of an errant coach from Benton’s Livery on Carson Street last week.

The door swung back and forth, its lock shattered, shards of it rolling lifelessly across the entry way of the building, erected in 1861, before Nevada was even a state. Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain’s) brother, Orion and his wife Molly attended there, though Clemens was now dead, having died a year ago, about the same time he began to wonder if there was anything real at all to the Protestant convictions he once proffered as an Episcopal priest on the American frontier.

He dumped the shorter of his two Colt handguns over the back of his holster, until it was level, and then slowly extended it forward into the midnight darkness of Nevada’s oldest sanctuary, as long as you didn’t count the Mormon meeting place in Genoa, or the Catholic church  which was actually finished before the Presbyterians were, though the Calvinists had started earlier but ran out of money. The 1873 Colt Peacemaker had a custom four-inch barrel, shorter than most, and had been given him by the Wichita congregation when he expressed his desire to see the “Wild West,” he called it, before it disintegrated into a sun-bleached pile of buffalo bones and dead Indians, though he hoped at the time that neither would happen despite the prognostications of railroad men who swore that “modernity,” as they called it, would someday link city to city and even coast to coast.

It was a funny gift for a preacher man. But he had grown fond of the gun, even come to appreciate its tool-worthiness in pulling the human refuse out of towns like Santa Fe and Salt Lake, and nearby Reno too, now that he lived on the eastern slope of the Sierra mountains in the Silver State’s capital city and was working as a bounty-hunter of sorts, though he liked to think of himself more as a detective.

Goddamnit, he breathed, as he broke another toe on one of the old pews that had been moved in the pastor’s recent effort to move himself closer to his congregation.

The pale green building was rectilinear in shape, a center aisle pushing up toward a Protestant altar where literally nothing happened religion-wise, not like in a Roman Catholic Church or even an Episcopal building, where the death of Christ was enacted literally over and over again. The Presbyterian congregation, unable to see past the expanse of stained and painted pine pews facing the front, and the Jennie Clemens’ memorial Bible sitting on the communion table like the altar it wasn’t—had been twisted sideways so that the people sat shallow-like, looking toward the stained glass that painted the north side of the slump-stone building with colored lights and biblical characters from stories hardly remembered by the city’s fathers and mothers who sat there thinking they were doing an important thing.  The prison quarry had provided the building’s stones and labor, though no one talked of it anymore, saints sitting alongside of sinners, though few talked about that either, save in a careless women’s circle or men’s day out, when the church’s congregants pulled up out of control shrubbery or planted easy-to-care-for spring flowers.

It wasn’t like his fugitive didn’t know he was in there, what with all the noise he was making after he’d collapsed the front door into a pile of Sierra-grown firewood. He’d make a donation, he figured, sometime after they hauled the next Christmas tree to the front of the sanctuary from the Woodfords or wherever. The opening would serve them well for a while.

“Listen, you son of a bitch,” he said out loud, thinking it odd he felt so comfortable cursing in the house of God, though he was certain that if Jesus attended there—the Galilean, in his seamless dress, all perfect and free, having suffered an excruciating death on a cross at the hands of church goers of all things, though it hardly surprised him, now—the Jewish savior would say the same thing, to more than a few people hiding out on top of the pews where his escaped felon was likely hiding beneath. “Stand-up, you snake. Or I’ll strike you down where you lie.”

The church was still, as he imagined every Carson City church to be on a mid-week evening around midnight, save maybe the Baptists and the Catholics, too, who were all kinds of active, with group meetings and middle of the night services he didn’t understand because a Christian sanctuary was supposed to be a good deal quieter than that, where a man could muse about spiritual things, or important things anyway, like he sometimes did at Saint Peters when George Allen was rector, “Old Mutton Chops,” he called him until the morning Mutton Chops found out and betrayed that he, Ronin, had a nickname, too.

“Fair enough,” he said, “it’s William, then. Shall I call you George?” and the reverend looked at him sort of uncomfortable like and nodded, knowing there was no way in hell a former priest was going to refer to another priest by anything other than his first name.

There was a quiet stirring toward the east side of the building where a small shed served, he guessed, as the church’s sacristy as he’d never been in the sanctuary, only the manse next door where a series of pastors had lived. The first he’d met was a supply preacher out of Virginia City. “Hands up, you jackass. You’re lucky I don’t plug you where you are.”

“Ronin?” the voice called out.

“Reverend?” the former reverend W. W. Ronin said.

“I heard a noise,” the pastor said.

“Reverend, there’s a devil loose in the church tonight.”

A hearty belly laugh sounded out from the sanctuary’s side door. The church’s pastor lit a lamp on a small table in sight of the door, where a communion set was sitting—its cup and a tall stack of bread plates, on which to serve “the body and the blood of Christ,” as most Christians said. It was a sacrament he thought was no longer necessary to celebrate. Being a good man was good enough. Hell, being a man was hard enough. He figured a man or woman’s actions didn’t matter a whole hell of a lot if God was good and great and everything the church thought God to be was true, anyway.

“Son, there’s a devil loose in every church,” the Reverend Woods said. “If you think there’s a special one here hiding out, I guess we ought to turn the lights on.”  Woods pushed a couple of buttons and the sanctuary began to glow. “Ronin, there’s no one here but you and me,” he said. William Washington peaked down the length of pews, south to north, as the new preacher had set them, cattywampus to the right and proper teachings of the Episcopal Church.

“No, there is not,” he replied, holstering his sidearm and nodding, as a sort of silent apology to breaking down the doors of the Presbyterian Church in Carson City. “And the doors, reverend…”

“Yes, my son?”

“I’ll attend to them tomorrow.”

“Come on by the parsonage,” the new reverend said, who followed the Reverend McClain, who succeeded the Reverends Fairbairn, Rice and Fraser, who had only stayed a couple of months each before preaching elsewhere. “Let me make you lunch. There’s a problem I’d like your help with, if you’re still working the dark side of the bench.”

“The bench, sir?”

“The sinners’ bench, Ronin, the confessor’s bench, where liars, thieves and other sinners wait for the grace of God to head their way.”

“Well, that could be any one of these pews, Reverend. Or any number of people, too.”

The preacher grabbed his belly and began to laugh again. “That’s the point, son. I’ll see you about noon.”

 

From The Rage and the Reckoning, a Western I work on, from time to time, in-between other projects. I thought it might be nice to see a piece on the Presbyterian Church in Carson City, where I served as pastor and head of staff for almost ten years, in the late eighties and early nineties, 1980s and 1990s, that is!

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The hanging of Sam Mills

Published by Gregg Townsley on April 22, 2015 Respond
Elko Hanging Elizabeth Potts and husband 1890

Elko hanging, 1890, Elizabeth Potts and husband, no extant photograph of Sam Mills’ gallows

Twenty-eight year old Sam Mills wasn’t exactly pretty to look at. He had only one eye, one usable eye, anyway. A bar-room fight in the silver and lead mining town of Eureka in the mid-to-late seventies had seen to that.  He was “a very bad character,” says retired Elko historian Howard Hickson.

But his death was 138 years ago. And Mills was a minority in a time when Christian sentiments about race didn’t count for much — some say they don’t count for much nowadays either. My guess is, when an angry man threatens you in a lead-town bar, saying, “You black son of a bitch. I’ll teach you to think you’re as good as a white man” — words preserved by another Elko County historian, now long gone — you’re going to defend yourself. You may even end up in a Carson City prison, which of course, Sam Mills did.

I mention Mills because he was the first African-American to be hanged in Nevada, and the first man of any color or distinction to be legally executed in Elko County. I was so fascinated by the tale when I first heard it that I made his story a big part of my story, in my book True Believer.

The fourth in a series of Nevada-based Westerns, True Believer relates the early history of Elko, Lamoille and Wells while spinning an imaginary tale of murder, mayhem and unrequited love in the eastern shadow of the Ruby Mountains. Read it and you’ll meet real-life Elko resident Jim Clark, who owned the Depot Hotel on Commercial Street, in 1881. You’ll also visit Wells’ first permanent building and bar, the Bulls Head Saloon, made only of railroad ties.

Read any of the W. W. Ronin Westerns — there are four in print, a fifth to be published by summer 2015 — and you’ll see Nevada in in a way you never thought you would or could.

When Mills was executed in 1877, at the end of an Elko County rope, he was 24 years old. But he wasn’t put to death for his barroom brawl in Eureka. He was hung for accidently killing his best friend. Here’s the rest of the story.

Sam Mills was making the best of his life, working as a cook at a hotel in Halleck Station, just outside of Elko. He kept his nose clean and out of other people’s business. He expected the same of others he met. But one hot summer day, in the course of a heated argument with the female proprietress of the Deering Hotel, Mills was fired. During the ensuing argument, a man named Webb knocked him to the floor, and Mills pulled a knife. Whether it was in self-defense or not, we’ll never know. But Sam left angry and without incident.

Still, when the story got out that Mills had snapped, local folks were concerned.

719px-CAMP_HALLECK,_NEVADA_-_NARA_-_524107

Nearby Camp Halleck, which lent troops to a local posse to find Sam Mills and returned empty-handed

Webb and Deering ran to a nearby saloon, where Mills had armed himself with a handgun. Hearing of his friend’s difficulty, Billy Finnerty volunteered to talk Mills down before things got out of hand. As Finnerty stepped through the saloon doors, Sam Mills shot him dead.

Finnerty, it’s remembered, shouted “Someone pray for me! I’m gone!” I’d like to think that Mills did just that, before stealing a horse and galloping out of town.

On June 10, 1877, just three days after he killed his best friend, nearby ranchers Myron Pixley and John Maverick found him hiding in a Lamoille Canyon haystack. My book fictionalizes the events of that day, and the evening prior, while reporting Mills’ last moments in an Elko jail, where he is remembered to have sung hymns and told fortunes. But the outcome was the same.

In the judge’s instructions to the jury, obtained by this writer from the Elko County Clerk’s office in April of 2015, District Judge John H. Flack — who was colorful man in his own way, laying down dimes for drinks that cost a quarter, and sometimes dozing on the judicial bench — counseled the jury with fifteen specific instructions: “Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, with malice afore thought,” Flack said. “Malice is that deliberate intention unlawfully to take away the life of a fellow creation which is manifested by external circumstances capable of proof.” A unanimous jury convicted Sam Mills of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to death. The district court’s decision was unanimously upheld by the Nevada Supreme Court in November.

On December 21, 1877, Sam Mills was led to his death on a platform constructed just for that purpose. His hands, arms and feet were bound. A black hood and executioner’s rope were placed around his head and neck. When the lever was pulled, Sam Mills hung there for a good twenty minutes until his heart stopped. His neck had not broken because his body was too thin and too light to bring the requisite weight to do the hangman justice. Ten minutes after that he was taken down and pronounced dead.

Mills’ final words were, “I am a poor colored man with no friends nor money. If I had money and a good lawyer I could have got clear.”

The long road toward redemption is sometimes a hidden one. For many felons, it begins in a hotel restaurant.

A few years ago, I was on a ride-along with a Washington County sheriff’s deputy just outside of Portland, Oregon. I asked why cops seemed to congregate at certain restaurants over against others. “We don’t want felons spitting in our food,” he said. “Some cooks harbor a grudge.” I’ve taken a different point of view of restaurants ever since.

But there’s something about Mills’ death that still haunts me.

Mills grew up in the South as a child of slave parents. At the time of his trial and execution, his parents were too penniless to attend, living in Atkinson, Kansas. If Sam Mills had had money, and been white, would he have “got clear?”

Sources:

Elko County Criminal Records — County Clerk’s Office, Elko, Nevada — Jury instructions.

Howard Hickson, http://www.gbcnv.edu/howh/SamMills.html, accessed 04.14.15

Edna B. Patterson and Louise A. Beebe, Halleck Country: The Story of the Land and Its People, University of Nevada Reno, 1982.

Edna B. Patterson, Louise A. Ulph and Victor Goodwin, Nevada’s Northeast Frontier, Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1991.

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Lake Tahoe’s Water Babies

Published by Gregg Townsley on April 6, 2015 Respond

Wagon road around Cave Rock

“What’s purple and lives at the bottom of the ocean?”

“You tell me,” I said, from behind the wheel of a 15-passenger van filled with elementary school children, from our martial arts business in Hillsboro.

“Moby Grape,” he replied, laughing in the way only a pre-teen youngster can.

The sorry excuse for a joke—kids say the darnedest things, don’t they?—comes to mind whenever I think of “Water Babies,” the mythical creatures talked about by an earlier generation of Washoe Indians.

Best that anyone can say, Washoe Water Babies tales predate the crazy corps of white Americans who crowded into northern Nevada when silver was first discovered in 1859.

The story is a familiar one, if you’re at all acquainted with Nevada history. As the Comstock began to explode, the Washoe’s claim to the area began to implode. By 1863, most people say the tribe(s) were driven from their land, the forests from Virginia City and its environs all the way to Lake Tahoe were clear-cut, and traditional migration patterns—simply pictured, to Lake Tahoe in the summer for fishing, to the Pine Nut Mountains east of there for the fall harvest of nuts, and the valleys in-between so as to winter warmly into the spring—were made difficult, at best. The impact on the Washoe culture was terminal, so much so that by 1866, Indian agents in Reno believed the tribe faced imminent destruction and no government provision was made for the tribe’s future.

Fast forward 150-some years. The Washoe have persevered. And despite significant challenges, which are beyond the scope of this simple blog entry—the Washoe people have formed tribal governments, regained control of (some) tribal lands and are busy, even to this day, actively building and teaching about their culture. In some small way, I hope my novels—set in northern Nevada, in the 1880s and forward—contribute to our understanding of this important community which, by some estimates, dates to more than 9,000 years ago.

But I want to talk about Water Babies, because you’ll see them pop up, as it were, in some of my books. At the beginning of Lady of the Lake, for instance.

“Did you see them?” the voice asked.

Ronin looked left and right, but not before he placed his right hand on the black buffalo-horn handled Colt sitting cross-draw at his waist. “Jesus Christ,” he murmured.

“Did you see the babies, Mister Ronin? Your horse stopped because of the Water Babies.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” W. W. Ronin laughed as he stood up to take a better look.

But to the early Washoe tribe(s), the Water Babies were no laughing matter.

Jo Ann Nevers writes in her 1976 history of the Washoe people, Wa-She Shu: A Washo Tribal History, that the mythical creature known to inhabit the crystal blue waters of Lake Tahoe was two to three feet tall, with long, flowing black hair.

Lake Tahoe was the home of another mythical creature, a great bird or Ang, which was said to swoop down, capture and carry its unsuspecting victims aloft. We’ll speak about the Ang in another post, suffice to say that some tribal stories declare the Ang is gone, having been killed by a caught but clever Washoe Indian brave.

lake tahoe 2

Overlooking Emerald Bay

My character “Happy Hands,” a holy man modeled after a handful of historical Washoe shamans and called such by his white friends—his actual Washoe name isn’t revealed in any of my books, out of respect—believes the bird with a seven-foot wingspan may actually still live. To the contrary though, a local legend, cited by Julie Stone in the Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park Interpretive Plan, cited here—it’s a difficult paper to obtain, apparently—says the bird’s death formed a reef near Cave Rock at Lake Tahoe. Fascinating, right?

Why my interest in these stories? Because the ancient legends imbued these creatures with special powers, sometimes causing illness and death even to those who were specially prepared or trained.

Similar stories are told, of course, by nearly every ancient people. The earliest Hebrews, for example, speak in horror of a fire streaming, lightning beaming Leviathan, the huge ocean fish mentioned numerous times in the Hebrew scriptures. When was the last time you heard a sermon about scary water creatures from your local preacher? Still, the stories were important enough to these Old Testament people that a cautionary note is sounded in one of the oldest Bible books, The Book of Job, chapter 41.

Arrows do not make him flee. Sling stones are like chaff to him. A club seems to him but a piece of straw. He laughs at the rattling of the lance.”

In other words, if you see one of these things, run.

lake tahoe 3

Early Mormons, camped at Lake Tahoe

These psychoid elements of the human condition, free-floating in the conscious and unconscious minds and histories of ancient peoples—thus always associated with water, the symbol of the unconscious—whether slimy, scaly, hairy or bald, hunt us down with harmful intentions. Even those of us who live righteous and otherwise-deserving lives. Even the priests, champions and heroines who are specially prepared to understand them or fend them off. Like the real-life piranha we live with, these ancient myths gnaw at our sense of order and safety, and sometimes, without warning, appear in the midst of life’s adventures.

I love these Ronin novels—there are four published at this point, a fifth soon to appear, available everywhere books are sold—because they allow me to tell important and sometimes ancient stories in hopefully interesting and contemporary ways.

The ancient stories say that the Water Babies live at the base of Cave Rock, but can sometimes be found—by virtue of an old tunnel beneath the rock—in every body of water the Washoe people frequent, including rivers, lakes, ponds and rivers. Should you be looking out for these creatures, next time you take a boat trip at Lake Tahoe, or visit the spring-fed bathhouses and swimming pools at Grover’s, Walley’s, Carson Hot Springs or Steamboat? Let caution be your guide, if the storytellers are to be believed.

They are powerful forces at work in the world. The ancient Washoe have told us so, as early 1844, when the American pathfinder John C Fremont “discovered” Lake Tahoe.

Want to read more about Water Babies? Pick up a copy of any of the W. W. Ronin Westerns found on this site, where Two Bears Books promises you: real people, real places, the way the West was really won. Or for a more serious read, consult the sources listed below. Hyperlinks are included, if the books are readily available.

Sources:
Grace Danberg, Washo Tales: Three Original Washo Indian Legends, Carson City: Nevada State Museum, 1968.

Matthew S. Macklay, Michael J. Macklay, Cave Rock: Climbers, Courts and a Washoe Indian Sacred Place, Reno: Univeristy of Nevada, Reno, 2010.

Jo Ann Nevers, Wa-She Shu: A Washo Tribal History, Reno: Inter-Tribal Council of Nevada, Inc., 1976.

Julie R. Stone, Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park Interpretive Plan, Reno: Nevada Conservation Corps, 2002.

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Authors fill house at Three Mugs Brewing Company in Hillsboro

Published by Gregg Townsley on March 29, 2015 Respond
Linda Mercury and new fan, Bob McKee getting his head rubbed.

Linda Mercury and new fan, Bob McKee getting his head rubbed.

Five local authors packed the house at the Three Mugs Brewing Company on Saturday, March 28, 2015. And a kindly patron / fan bought me a beer! The third in a series of author events begun by local publishing guru Jason Brick, the evening event competed with spring break plans for many in the greater Hillsboro area. But a good time, and a packed house, was enjoyed by all. A fourth event is being planned for this summer. (Photo attributions include: Bob McKee,  Jessica Smith, Nancy Townsley and James Wakeman.)

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Our first interview, meet author Linda Pendleton

Published by Gregg Townsley on March 21, 2015 Respond

LindaPendletoncompressedMeet author Linda Pendleton, author of more than a dozen fiction and nonfiction books, and the wife of the late action-adventure writer, Don Pendleton. 

Gregg: Linda, thanks for being the first of our interviews on The Writers Edge. You’re an accomplished artist and writer, and a businesswoman too, judging by what I see online. Your books, websites, your late husband’s books and the possibility of a few movies — can I ask you what motivates you to create? Is it the muse or the mortgage?

Linda:  I write because I love to write and have a desire to satisfy my creative drive. I enjoy the inspirational flow and passion I feel as my creativity is expressed on the written page, and I enjoy sharing it. I have been told that some of my readers have found my nonfiction writing to be not only inspirational, but healing and comforting. As a writer, that is always so nice to hear and it warms the heart.   

A writer has to be a business person as well as a writer. Writing is only part of the game. In the past, it was finding agents, publishers, and wasting a lot of time. I now self-publish, thanks to Amazon Kindle and Createspace. But I also have my husband’s body of work to manage, in addition to ours, and my own. So a writer’s work is not done when he or she writes “The End.” 

Gregg: I enjoyed your book, A Walk Through Grief: Crossing the Bridge Between Worlds. In it, you talk about your writing partnership with your late husband, Don Pendleton. His obituary in the Los Angeles Times noted that Don’s 38 Executioner novels had sold more than 25 million copies around the world. Wow! I know there was some back and forth between the two of you about women’s and men’s points of view. What’s the difference?

Linda: Yes, Don was considered the “father of the action/adventure genre,” with his publication of his original The Executioner: Mack Bolan Series, beginning in 1969 wiboooks2executionerth War Against the Mafia. In 1980, Don franchised the Mack Bolan characters to Harlequin and about 900 books have been written by other writers. Don’s original 37 Executioner novels were released in December as ebooks, for the first time, by Open Road Media. His Executioner books had female fans as well as male. Mack Bolan is the ultimate hero and appeals to men and women and young and old. 

I really don’t know how to answer that question regarding our differences in the male and female point of view. We were such soulmates that we thought very much alike. In our collaboration of our book, Roulette, The Search for the Sunrise Killer — which features husband and wife police detectives who, as we say, are married more to their badges than each other — we very much enjoyed writing the novel and having the characters bounce off each other. The book was set to be published by a New York publisher, Donald I. Fine, and as good a long-time NY publisher and editor that Fine was, he wanted to take out some of our banter between the sexes. We refused to make changes and said, “no thanks.” I published it later.

Gregg: I read your first novel, Shattered Lens, and am mid-way through Fractured Image. Your main character is Catherine Winter, a sixty-some-year-old private investigator. I’m always feeling some pressure to lower the age of my protagonist, W. W. Ronin. I’m 63. A female action/adventurer, and someone in their sixties?

Linda: I wanted an older. widowed, Southern California private eye who has been in law enforcement for years, and can handle herself well in investigative work. I don’t consider the Catherine Winter series to be action/adventure, but more hard-boiled PI novels. I don’t think there has to be any age limit or formula for creating a character. Some of my protagonists in my other novels are younger, such as my two main characters in my thriller, Sound of Silence. The female lead is in her mid-thirties and the male lead is in his mid-forties. An author’s age  should not have an influence on the age of the protagonist we create. After all, it is our creation, and we can make them any age we want, depending on the story we want to tell. As they say, you’re as young as you feel.     

Gregg: I enjoyed the introduction you wrote to Don’s book, The Cosmic Breath: Metaphysical Essay and your afterward in his book, The Metaphysics of a Novel. Can you say more about your partnership?

Linda: Thank you. It was wonderful working with Don. He was such a gifted writer, and a great teacher, too. The nonfiction book, To Dance With Angels was our first collaboration. The writing and research for that book was really life-changing for us. Actually, for the most part, it was a reaffirming of beliefs we already held. We both had a life-long interest in metaphysics and the paranormal, and the book became such a personal inspirational and spiritual journey for us. As it turned out, since its publication in 1990, and five editions later, our book has been life-changing for many over the years.   

donandlindaatreeDon and I wrote side by side, whether we were collaborating or working on other projects. When I wasn’t writing, I would love it when I heard him print out his latest chapter on one of his Joe Copp mysteries or his Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective Series, so I could read it. We shared the process of writing. 

One thing we never thought we would be doing was to write comic graphic novels. We adapted and scripted Don’s War Against the Mafia. Sadly, the company went bankrupt before part four of the comic was published. That was so interesting, not only working with Don’s Mack Bolan character, but being writer, director, set designer — and I would draw stick-figure panels for the artist, Sandu Florea. Then following Don’s death in 1995, I adapted and scripted the second Executioner novel, Death Squad, to a 124-page graphic novel, again working with artist Sandu Florea.

Gregg: Looking back on Don’s work, he was a huge influence in my own writing. I can’t imagine anyone near as prolific. You seem to be getting there as well. What’s your writing discipline? And do you prefer to write fiction or nonfiction?

Linda: I don’t have a lot of discipline, I suppose, because I don’t have a contract fulfillment date from a publisher. I work best at night and sometimes, into the middle of the night. Normally, I will have more than one writing project going at a time. I’m currently near the end of a private eye novel, and I have another one about two-thirds done. 

I enjoy writing nonfiction as well as fiction. I do like creating fictional characters and having them take over the story as mine do at times.  

Gregg: In the ’70s, I earned a couple of divinity degrees at a Protestant seminary — a Masters in Divinity and later a Doctor of Ministry. Both reflected traditional Protestant theology and practice. I notice that you’ve republished certain 19th century spiritual writers. Can you talk a little about your motivation?

Linda: Yes, I have written introductions to several spiritual books that are in the public domain. I personally felt some of the Spiritualist literature should be available today and decided to publish some. One of my biggest influences goes back many years to the book, There is a River, the Story of Edgar Cayce. Years ago, when I read about Cayce, I never dreamed I would be writing and experiencing similar events. I have a lot of interest in the Spiritualist Movement of the 19th century, and much of that interest was sparked by writing To Dance With Angels about spirit communication, mediumship, and Dr. James Martin Peebles, who was a leading Spiritualist of that time. I have two online e-courses that are about spirit communication, and I also published How Thin the Veil: 150 Years of Spiritualism, with that same publisher. 

I also have done introductions to several nonfiction books that were written during the California Gold Rush days—and they read like historical fiction, although they are nonfiction. As a native Californian, I found it to be a very interesting time in the early days of California’s history. It sounds as if you’ve combined historical fiction with spirituality during the late 19th century, with your own books, Gregg.

Gregg: I have. I focused my doctoral research on unchurched people, and just missed publishing a book in the ’80s entitled, The Good, the Bad and the Indifferent. As my agent said, after I took a year to write the extra chapter requested by the publisher, “Next time, strike while the iron’s hot!” It was an emotionally expensive lesson. My sense, personally and professionally, is that churchgoers and non-churchgoers ask and live the same questions.

I’ve thought about doing something similar with some of the 19th century sources I’ve used in my Western novels. Can you talk a bit about the process of re-publishing books from the public domain?

Linda: My timing for re-publishing those old books apparently was good as it was when Amazon Kindle was first becoming popular. Many others have had the same ideas on publishing public domain books. Now Kindle will only publish a small number of the same public domain books. Sadly, some books are being published without editing the scanned books, or without adding new material. There are a couple of publishing companies that are now publishing print books on Spirituality, including a number of books written by the terrestrial James M. Peebles. He lived from 1822-1922.

Gregg: It’s been said that “writers write.” It’s clear that some writers also read. What’s on your bedside table?

Linda: I don’t read as much as I used to. I just read Gil Cohen: Aviation Artist. It’s a beautiful book about Gil’s long career as an artist. For about 18 years, in the 1970s and ’80s, Gil did the cover art for the Executioner books. I read mostly nonfiction. I do have a couple of books waiting to be finished: Proof of Heaven and Consulting Spirit, A Doctor’s Experience with Practical Mediumship. I also have several novels (mysteries or thrillers) awaiting my attention on my Kindle.    

Gregg: The Kindle is great! I read a great many more books because of it.

In a couple of your books, you comment about the strong attraction you and Don had for each other, even at first glance, saying it was as if you knew each other in a previous life. Which is it — do we live again or do we live still?

Linda: Both. I believe that consciousness and love live on after the death of the physical body. I also believe in past lives, that we’ve been here before, and am convinced we are here for lessons, and may choose to come back again. I’ve never felt that to be in conflict with my personal spiritual beliefs, even as a kid. Don and I both believed we had been together before, perhaps several times. As I said, soulmates, and a part of us recognized that at first glance — a knowing that is nearly impossible to explain unless you have experienced it yourself. The same goes for many “paranormal experiences.” Really nothing “paranormal” at all, but a normal part of life.  

Psychiatrist Brian Weiss probably explains soulmates better than anyone in one of his books, Only Love is Real, A Story of Soulmates Reunited, which he published in 1996. 

Gregg: I’m familiar with Weiss, and read Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past-Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives. It was intriguing and reminded me of The Search for Bridey Murphy. I read the book as a teenager.

Since we’re talking about the supernatural, Don writes in The Metaphysics of the Novel: The Inner Workings of a Novel and a Novelist, that some writers experience inspiration as “automatic writing.” When my words are “flowing,” I have a sensation in the left side of my head, which you’ve pointed out is the language center of the brain. (My writer/editor wife was incredulous when I told her this.) You’ll sometimes write into the early morning hours, you’ve said. What is inspiration like for you?

Linda: How well I remember Bridey Murphy! I can still recall seeing the headlines in the newspaper sometime about 1952 when the best-selling book came out. My father and I were both fascinated and had long conversations about it. I read the book shortly thereafter. 

I admire Dr. Brian Weiss for the work he does on past life therapy. His books are wonderful. He’s one of several psychiatrists or medical doctors who have stepped out of the traditional to present their work. Of course, Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross was one of the first to do so, with her wonderful work on death and dying. 

I recall a conversation my father and I had one Saturday afternoon watching a program about the best-selling author, Taylor Caldwell. She spoke about her novels and how she had no idea where the detailed information she had written had come from. She has stated that she often had no technical knowledge of the subjects she wrote about. I was fascinated by her comment that often her fingers were guided at her typewriter and she considered it automatic writing. In later years I was to learn more about her writing process. That information was even more fascinating. She spoke of a Presence around her when she wrote and at times she would communicate with that Presence, receiving answers to her questions and information for the novel she was working on. Maybe that Presence was Saint Luke, the subject of her book, Dear and Glorious Physician.     

At times when I am writing, I have no idea where the inspiration is coming from, but I do believe it often comes from beyond me. I do have some psychic ability, so it’s possible I tap into the muses, guides and angels.   

I’m a night person and that seems to be when I am most creative.  I love it when I have that inspiration from beyond and am able to roll with that creative flow. It’s fun and satisfying.

three facts one lie 5 compressedGregg: The title for our interview series on The Writers Edge is “Three Facts, One Lie.” When I was a youth pastor, I used to play the game as a sort of ice breaker. It helped kids get to know each other, and I was often surprised what teens decided to say. Here’s how we do it. There are four statements total. Be sure to obscure the one that isn’t true so that we can have some fun before identifying which of the four is false.

Linda: I don’t like lies or liars. I prefer complete honesty. That is a button-pusher for me if I find out someone lies to me. But I’ll play your game. 

  1. I did a TV commercial.
  2. I was married to a police captain.
  3. I was an ice skater.
  4. I’ve used a PC since 1985.

Gregg: I’m guessing ice skater, given that you’re a beautiful woman (#1), write with great detail in your detective novels (#2) and we’ve both used personal computers since the eighties. Did I get it right?

Linda: I don’t know if you recall the TV series, I’ll Fly Away.  It starred Sam Waterson as a southern district attorney and Regina Taylor played his housekeeper. It was set around the civil rights movement in the late 1950s to early 1960s. We loved the show and when there was talk it would be canceled in 1992 or so, I wrote the network and they asked me to do a TV commercial. 

Years ago, when my kids were young, we went to an ice skating rink.  I put on a pair of ice skates, tried to stand up, sat again, and removed the skates. You’re right, I am not an ice skater. 

Gregg: It’s been a real pleasure, Linda. I’m enjoying your books. With my late son — Jared died in a mountain climbing accident in February 2012 — I read every Executioner novel your late husband wrote. It’s a distinct honor and I look forward to communicating with you more.

Linda: That’s wonderful that you and your son, Jared, were able to enjoy and share in the reading of Don’s Executioner novels. Those are wonderful memories for you to hang onto. 

I’m glad you’re enjoying my books, Gregg. Thank you for the opportunity to do this interview. 

Linda Pendleton has written in a variety of genres: mystery novels, nonfiction, ecourses, comic scripting, and screenplays. She coauthored books with her late husband, Don Pendleton, including the popular nonfiction books, To Dance With Angels, and Whispers From the Soul, along with the crime novel, Roulette: The Search for the Sunrise Killer. Other nonfiction books include A Walk Through Grief; Three Principles of Angelic Wisdom; A Small Drop of Ink. Her fiction includes her novel, The Unknown; Catherine Winter PI Series: Shattered Lens, and Fractured Image; Sound of Silence; and Corn Silk Days, Iowa, 1862.   Although she devotes most of her time to her love of writing, she also enjoys genealogy.

Linda’s Websites: http://www.lindapendleton.com, http://www.todancewithangels.com, http://www.executionerseries.com/ Linda’s Blogs: http://worldofspirit.blogspot.com/, http://mydropsofink.blogspot.com/

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25 most popular Western movies

Published by Gregg Townsley on March 20, 2015 Respond

TombstoneAsking people what their favorite Western movies are produces an interesting list, at best.  I did that in February on my Facebook author’s page, and soon learned that if I wanted a statistical sampling I’d have to ask the question more carefully. Some folks responded with their favorite books. Others didn’t distinguish between multiple versions of the same story. Nearly everyone assumed that someone else’s mention of a film meant they didn’t need to mention it again.

By way of reporting, 3104 people saw the post. A much smaller sample, 65 people, voted. Some folks voted multiple times. Three actors were mentioned by name—Errol Flynn, John Wayne (most often) and Clint Eastwood. The result was an enthusiastic list of “gotta see” films. Tombstone, with nine people reporting, and True Grit with eight, were the most popular.

Here are the multiple winners:

Tombstone (9), True Grit (8), Jeremiah Johnson (4), Lonesome Dove (4), Open Range (4), Searchers (4), Shane (4), 3:10 to Yuma (3), Blazing Saddles (3), Good, Bad and the Ugly (3), Monte Walsh (3), My Name is Nobody (3), Once Upon a Time in the West (3), Silverado (3), The Outlaw Josey Wales (3), The Shootist (3), Unforgiven (3), Winchester ’73 (3), Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid (2), Cat Ballou (2), Conagher (2), Hang ‘Em High (2), High Plains Drifter (2), Magnificent Seven (2), Pale Rider (2), Quigley Down Under (2) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (2).

Here are the single mentions:

Big Jake, Broken Arrow, Broken Trail, Dances With Wolves, Dodge City, Duck You Sucker, Fistful of Dollars, Fort Apache, Heaven’s Gate, High Country, High Noon, Hombre,  Judge Leroy Bean, McClintock, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Paint Your Wagon, Red River, Red Sun, Return to Lonesome Dove, Rio Bravo, Rio Grande, Shanghai Noon, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Sons of Katie Elder, Stagecoach, Support Your Local Sheriff, The Cowboys, They Died With Their Boots On, Verz Cruz, Virginia City, War Wagon, Wild Bill, Wild Wild West, Wyatt Earp and Young Guns.

Which of your favorite films is missing?

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3 Ronin books and a detective novella in 2015

Published by Gregg Townsley on February 27, 2015 Respond

beachbuddy2-225x300 This will be a banner year for me. Two Bears Books will publish three more Westerns—Home Means Nevada, Bathhouse Row and The Mountain Is Easy. The publication of Home Means Nevada finishes the core books in the W. W. Ronin Western series, introducing the characters and establishing the history and time period. The first five books are written as an easy to read “third person” narrative, placed in 1880s Lake Tahoe, Reno, Virginia City and Carson City, Nevada.

About book five: Continue reading →

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