Frederick Niven, Hands Up! (1913)

This early cowboy western by Scots-Canadian writer Frederick Niven (1878-1944) is a character study of a frontier outlaw with “good” bad man credentials. Like other train robbers and road agents of western history, he is absorbed into the cowboy culture of the open range between his crimes. There, even should his identity be known, he’s given shelter from the long arm of the law.

Niven, who spent time in the West as a young man, seems to understand this careful balance between observing the letter of the law and loyalty to the Code that preceded it. One often serves justice better than the other. One is a more accurate measure of a man’s character than the other.

The Apache Kid in this case is a decent and honorable man, who happens to rob trains. Even in that vocation, he exercises scruples, cleverly outwitting an expressman instead of shooting him.

Deeply thoughtful, he’s something of a philosopher. Smarter than your average lawbreaker, he knows how to deal with more venal men to get what he wants from them. Nervy and daring, he can volunteer under an assumed name to help a sheriff’s posse track down a gang of cattle rustlers.

  

Knowles Canyon, Colorado

Villainy. The villains and crooks in the story are those men who lack character. And they can be found in both high and low places, including the seats of power occupied by elected officials. No less a man than a U.S. Senator is willing to cut a deal with a convict for his own personal profit.


As the story is told, the crime of rustling cattle pales in comparison with a man’s attempt to rob a woman. Believing her to have come into possession of money, he shows up at her isolated cabin with dishonorable  intentions. As it happens, she is not alone, and he is dismissed at gunpoint.

Meanwhile, a ranch foreman shows his true colors when he fires a new cowhand for using another name beside his own and then reports him to detectives investigating a killing. This behavior violates the Code, whereby a man may go by any name he chooses, and whatever is known about him is never freely revealed to authorities.

Humorously told in many ways, the novel is fully serious about how to judge the worth of a man. Being on the wrong side of the laws that protect the corrupt and the greedy is not enough to brand a man a criminal. Even a sheriff comes to that conclusion when he chooses not to arrest the Apache Kid and then turns in his badge.

Story: The Truest Story of Jesse James

It's 2085. Do you know where your grandchildren are?

Here's my take on the post-apocalypse. The good folks over at Schlock Magazine picked my story "The Truest Story of Jesse James" for their current anthology. It's now up and begins thus:

The town library at Prairie Creek fit into three old crates kept in a storage room where the school teacher lived. Virgil Case, the current teacher, used the books—or what was left of them—to teach reading. His young scholars cut their teeth on the likes of John Grisham, Louis L’Amour, and Reader’s Digest condensed books. 

They also served for history texts, since Virgil had to explain words the kids didn’t understand. Like “martini,” “bushwhack,” and “World Series.” 

Some parents disagreed with him about teaching all that old stuff. His library was about a world dead and gone, and good riddance. About as many argued that if you don’t study the past, you’re destined to repeat it, and nobody wants that. One holdout from either camp said history repeats itself anyway, so what’s the difference?

Continued here.

Bend of the River (1952)

This James Stewart and Anthony Mann western makes an interesting comparison with Meek’s Cutoff, reviewed here last week. There are many of the same elements, including a wagon train, a hired scout, Indians, and the vast unsettled terrain of Oregon.

This Oregon is a good deal more picturesque, with forests, a distant snow-covered mountain peak, and a navigable river. Like Meek, Stewart plays a man with something of a past, though he rarely speaks of it. He’s run with border raiders in Missouri and Kansas during the Civil War, the scars on his neck evidence of an encounter with vigilantes.

It’s hard to believe likable James Stewart as a former bad man. While he is always an enjoyable screen presence, this is a role more for Clint Eastwood or Sam Elliott. Actually, it’s a role for Arthur Kennedy, who is also in the film as another former bad man. We first meet him, about to be elevated at the end of a rope, and Stewart saves him without asking any questions.

Plot. The two men team up and are joined later by a third man, a gambler played handsomely by Rock Hudson. The wagon train is harassed by Shoshone, who are dispatched one by one, 1950s style, by gun and knife. The travelers are received warmly by the folks in Portland, who give them a big send-off as they head upriver by steamboat to a valley where they intend to settle.

The warm welcome quickly disappears with the discovery of gold in the vicinity. Portland turns into sin city, and the settlers’ supplier reneges on a deal to ship them cattle and food for the winter. Stewart, Kennedy, and Hudson seize the goods and set out on a long trek, first by boat and then overland, blazing a trail over a mountain pass.

They are pursued first by the supplier and his henchmen, who come to an unhappy end in a fierce firefight. Then several hired hands mutiny, and with Kennedy taking charge, there’s a change of plans. He heads the wagons instead for a mining camp, where big money has been promised for delivery of the settlers’ food and cattle.

Left behind but undaunted, Stewart pursues them, and during a shootout in the midst of a river crossing, he struggles fiercely with Kennedy, finally overpowering him and sending his body down the river. Stewart’s past becomes known, and he’s recognized as a changed man. The supply train arrives at the settlement, where Stewart gets a big thank you for his efforts and the affection of Laura whose respect he has won.

 

Mount Hood, Sandy River, Oregon

Genre conventions. Indians in this film are menacing figures, plain and simple. There’s no debate about how to deal with them. It’s kill or be killed. Bad men are the same. Many bite the dust during the film, and their deaths are treated like ball players who have fouled out of the game. We see them fall dead, and for all we know they are left where they fall.

Filmed on location in Oregon, this color film makes the most of being outdoors. There are grand vistas, and steamboat lovers will enjoy the footage of river travel. Four-horse teams exert impressive effort as they pull wagons up to mountain snowlines, where beyond them distant valleys and ranges can be seen. The music track is correspondingly grand.

Though blacks are seldom seen in westerns, this one has the dubious presence of Stepin Fetchit, who does his usual slow-witted routine, as assistant to the ship’s captain. You can imagine a mid-century audience chuckling at his coon antics and you can cringe with embarrassment.

Women are present to add a grace note of femininity. Julia Adams, in fact, is grace under pressure. Wounded by an Indian arrow to the throat, she hardly pales under the primitive conditions of frontier health care. The traditional alcoholic doctor removes the arrow and prescribes a month of bed rest, during which she gets to liking city life and takes a job as a cashier in a gambling den. Instead of taking a shine to the likes of Stewart, she shows additional bad judgment by getting chummy with Kennedy.

Old West glossary, no. 23

Montana cowboys, c1910

Here’s another set of terms garnered from early western novels. Definitions were discovered in various online dictionaries, as well as searches in Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang, Dictionary of the American West, The New Encyclopedia of the American West, The Cowboy Dictionary, The Cowboy Encyclopedia, The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology, The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, and The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

These are from Frederick Niven’s novel Hands Up! about a tenderfoot and a train robber. Once again I struck out a few times. If anybody knows the meaning of  “wax on one’s fingernails,” “wag the whip,” or “picture soldier,” leave a comment.

arnica = an herbal remedy for sprains and bruises. “Oh I don’t think you need anything much. If you like, a little arnica—three parts water, and bathe that jaw.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

big bug = an important person; one who considers himself so. “A man does not become a political big bug without having some kind of savvy.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

bootblack tough = a criminal who starts out as a petty crook. “But the men we were after were not ‘boot-black toughs,’ as the West calls such characters who have graduated through picking pockets, knuckle-dusting—in groups—late homing merchants in alleys, breaking open freight cars, to shooting clerk and teller in some small mining camp.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

bousy = intoxicated, drunk. “The first thing he knew being landed on his back before his bousy finger could press the trigger.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

brass-pounder = telegraph operator. “Scotty, the brass-pounder, over at Black Kettle—the agent—he says Apache went out with them all right.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

bring to book = call to account, investigate, punish. “But ‘using his position erroneous,’ as the narrator expressed it, he was brought to book.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

bucket = saddle scabbard for a rifle. “The troopers had still their rifles in the buckets, but it was safe for Apache then to let go his hold.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

codfish mouthed = open-mouthed; reference to the codfish, which swims with its mouth open. “Pain will teach you how to grip your jaws together and I never heard that a cod-fished-mouthed man was much use.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

cold deck = to cheat, to deceive; dealing from a prepared deck of cards. “That sheriff would never cold-deck no man.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

cook’s bitch = cook’s helper. “What was you doing at the Diamond K? Cook’s bitch?” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

cracksman = burglar. “His name only led on to some tale of another brigand, train-robber, hold-up man; or some horse-thief, brand-faker; or townsmen (for I was not the only man at the Triangle who had begun life in a city) would tell of some cracksman.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

curve = to travel purposefully or with some urgency. “News of Apache Kid’s presence there reaching Lone Tree, the marshal would have come curving into town with a posse at his heels.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

Pre-Raphaelite painting, 1895

greenery-yallery = over-refined, unmanly; reference to the favorite colors, green and yellow, of Pre-Raphaelite British painters and satirized by Gilbert and Sullivan. “So I saw myself, if not a ‘greenery yallery, oh such a good young man’ as—in the phrase of old women—a ‘good son.’” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

guts = undercarriage of railroad cars on which tramps hitched a ride. “His comrade left him lying there, And took the guts of an Eastbound train.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

hair brand = a brand made by burning the hair but not the hide. “You ponder on that and get it fixed proper in you—no hair-brand—but plumb well in.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

jack easy = easy-going; a reference to Frederick Marryat’s comic novel Mr. Midshipman Easy (1836). “My father was a queer old fellow. He was a determined enough man, but very ‘jack easy’ as the word is.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

jig juice = alcohol, spirits, whisky. “He pikes over to call on the mayor, and sets up the jig-juice to him, pours flattering words in his ears.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

kidney = temperament; type. “It was well enough known, he said that representatives of the law and road-agents, and men of such kidney, often (as it is called) ‘josh’ one another.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

kittle cattle = capricious, difficult, erratic, rash. “Relatives are sometimes kittle-cattle, and as I did not know how he would take my letter I wearied for a reply.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

Boss Tweed, 1869

king bolt = a main or large bolt in a mechanical structure; thus, a leader, boss, kingpin. “He has already got the king-bolt but he wants to round up the whole outfit.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

knucklebones = an ancient game, similar to jacks. “Isn’t that just the way ninety-nine men out of a hundred go on dickering with evil week-days and salving it all on Sunday—playing knucklebones with brain, heart, conscience, and what are called primitive instincts?” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

liquidate = to drink. “We passed into the bar and liquidated.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

long clothes = clothing worn by an infant, extending below the feet. “‘Compose myself!’ she cried. ‘And me through the war when you was in long clothes.’” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

lurcher = hooligan, bum. “It must gall you—that lurcher not being dead!” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

pass in one’s checks = to die. “He’d have passed in his checks then if you had not stepped in.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

pike = to leave, run off quickly. “Apache, who had either played possum for sheer devilment, or wakened up and tumbled—after this fellow piked out—and reckoned it was his long suit, though maybe they didn’t think so—well, Apache had ridden along and cached himself there in the scrub.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

push = a crowd, group, gang. “I see—you was broke and so you went on with the Dago push till such times as the white gang would come along?” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

round robin = A petition or protest on which the signatures are arranged in a circle in order to conceal the order of signing. “They want to quit badly. They’ve filed a petition to him—kind of round-robin.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

Smoking concert, 1901

smoking concert = social event for men only with a program of music and comedy and often including drinking. “He who worships a Goddess in spirit and in truth is not likely to slide too often from his chair beneath the table, at a smoking concert.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

spread rail = rails spread apart by the weight of a train causing derailment. “I still has faith in the United States, but there’s individuals I don’t trust no more than a spread rail.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

spraddle = to sprawl, straggle, spread. “The men who were to drive the herd ki-yied it out, and spraddled it en route, and away they went, herd and beeves, in a cloud of dust.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

spring gun = a gun set with a trip wire. “I put spur to my pony so sharply that he leapt forward as if he had been ejected from a spring gun.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

stagger juice = spirits. “I got him to sing it three times, him being that full of song and stagger-juice.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

storm center = a center of trouble or disturbance. “Black Kettle seems to be getting to be a storm-centre.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

tell off = assign to a particular task. “I did my share in the exciting and dirty work of cutting out; and sometimes was told off to lend a hand at the branding during the succeeding days.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

time check = notice of termination of employment. “I took the time check from him, tore it into little pieces and dropped it in the sand.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

tongue-loosener = spirits. “Some devilment makes me throw a lariat of friendship over him and corral him over into the ho-tel and put tongue-loosener into him.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

too green to burn = inexperienced, a tenderfoot. “He’s either plumb locoed, or else he’s too green to burn, or else he’s lookin’ for trouble.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

tumble = realize. “It was at this here point that I tumbles to it where they had come from.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

Image credits: Wikimedia Commons

Coming up: Frederick Niven, Hands Up! (1913)

Western writer inspiration, no. 14

Here is this week's omnibus of #westernwriter inspirations posted each day at twitter [click to enlarge]. If you are on twitter, you can follow me @rdscheer.

Interior, church, Isleta, New Mexico, 1895

T. J. Archer Store, Tulsa, Indian Territory (Oklahoma), 1893

Overland caravan, with boats. Survey of Colorado, 1889-1890

Las Vegas, Nevada, c1895

Taos pueblo, New Mexico, 1893

Fort Reno, Oklahoma, 1891

Waterfront, sternwheelers, Portland, Oregon, 1898

 Picture credits: Wikimedia Commons

Coming up: Old West glossary, no. 23

Photo-finish Friday: out and about

 
Here's another wall mural. This one is near downtown LA, on Figueroa. The pic looks a little quick and dirty because I took it on the fly as the bus I was in rolled by.

Photo-finish Friday is the bright idea of Leah Utas over at The Goat's Lunch Pail.


Coming up: Frederick Niven, Hands Up! (1913)

Caroline Lockhart, Me—Smith (1911)

Smith and the schoolmarm

Smith, the title character of this unusual cowboy western is no damn good. He’s not just a good bad guy, who wins your sympathy even while he breaks the law. He’s rotten to the core. And he shows his true colors from the opening chapter, as he shoots an Indian in the back, for his blanket.

Born in Illinois, author Caroline Lockhart (1871-1962) grew up there on a family ranch. Working as a journalist, she settled in Wyoming, where she began a career as a writer of western fiction. An opponent of Prohibition, she acquired a weekly newspaper in Cody and actively promoted the preservation of western culture.

Me—Smith was her first published novel. It is a wry, anti-romantic portrayal of cowboys and Indians. The setting is a ranch in Wyoming owned by the Indian widow of a Scots rancher. Lacking even an ounce of conscience or generosity, Smith hatches a scheme to get the widow’s money. Pretending to fall in love with her, he promises marriage, all the while putting the moves on a pretty schoolmarm who boards at the ranch.

A small cast of other characters takes up residence there: several grub-line cowpunchers, a paleontologist from an Eastern college, his field assistant, a deputy sheriff looking for rustlers, and the Indian woman’s half-breed daughter, Susie. There’s also a Chinese cook.

Smith watching Susie at work

Plot. Susie is naïve but sensible for her 16 years. She pegs Smith as no good from the start and is alarmed when her mother falls for him. Plotting against him, she allows Smith to involve her in the theft of horses from the local Indian reservation. But he foils her attempt to get him arrested.

Blowing all the money he gets for the stolen horses at a gambling saloon, Smith persuades Susie’s lovesick mother, Prairie Flower, to give him her savings. Returning by night from the bank, she is held up by road agents who make off with a flour sack stuffed with all her cash.

Meanwhile, as the deputy Ralston discovers an occasional fresh cowhide with the brand cut from it, he suspects the local Indians of thieving from a nearby white rancher. When no evidence of that turns up, suspicion is thrown to the paleontologist, McArthur, who spends long days wandering the hills alone. Only we know that Smith is the real culprit.

A romantic thread emerges amid all this as Smith and Ralston get into a competition for the affections of the young schoolmarm, Dora. Inexperienced at judging the depth of mendacity in others, she gladly agrees to offer Smith nightly grammar lessons. He is a poor student, but she is undaunted in her efforts.

Ralston courts her more winningly on an excursion into the hills to catch grasshoppers for fish bait. Seized with jealousy, Smith presses his advantage as Dora’s pupil. Misinterpreting the attention she gives to Smith, Ralston figures Smith is her favorite.

As contrived as this may sound, Lockhart makes it work by holding the romance at a comic distance. Her young lovers are a bit too polite and too principled for their own good. Utterly unscrupulous, Smith is able to outmaneuver them at almost every step. When he can’t win, he gets even.

Convinced that all he needs is a stash of cash to make Dora his bride, Smith rustles a herd of the Indians’ cattle and enlists the help of McArthur’s slow-witted assistant, Tubbs. Finally onto Smith, Ralston catches the two men red-handed, and justice is eventually served.

Prairie Flower dies, in a sequence of events too complicated to go into here, including being shot in the arm by Smith and the careless processing of some rattlesnake venom. The paleontologist helps Susie locate her father’s family back East. Ralston and Dora profess their love and kiss. And the Indians arrange a special fate for Smith.